New Laptop - slow performance!?

chamar

Hi All,

I just got a new laptop there yesterday. The old one (5yrs) was so slow it was driving me demented so I ordered a dell inspiron 1721, 2.20 ghtz processor (amd turion) and 4gs of ram thinking there i would have even more power than i'd ever need.

Now that i'm using it, i'm realising that it isn't that fast at all! It seemed v fast yesterday but today CPU usage is going to 100% when I am only surfing the web & I just tried to watch a dvd there and is was jumpy.

ran antivirus to make sure i hadn't got infected with anything. the only thing i have dowloaded is firefox and quicktime. i've checked the system specs in control panel (which took an age to come up!) and the processor and ram are what i ordered.

i can't understand it. is there anything else that could be wrong?

AlmightyCushion

It may be vista indexing the disk, this usually very cpu intensive and should be done after the first week. Open up task manager and find out what is using the cpu and what percentage it is using.

Voodu Child

Stupid question: Is it Vista, and have you checked the power setting isn't on 'power saver' or 'balanced'? (battery icon on taskbar)

kaizersoze

Did you do a clear out since you got it?
ie. Get rid of McAfee/Norton, everything Google, empty the start up folder and turn off all the Dell support software.

What progs are running in the background?

There's also a gig of ram being wasted unless you got 64 bit windows.

chamar

Thanks for responding.

The power setting is on dell recommended - i tried switching to high performance which didn't help. I can't work out what is using all the CPU as it keeps fluctuating. like one second it's at 15% and then it goes up to 100%. I'm only using 30% of RAM.

Could it be the turion processor? 2.20 ghtz shouldn't be slow like this should it?

It's weird, because yesterday it seemed fine, just watching youtube and the like. Now it's a disaster!

chamar

kaizersoze wrote: »

Did you do a clear out since you got it?
ie. Get rid of McAfee/Norton, everything Google, empty the start up folder and turn off all the Dell support software.

What progs are running in the background?

There's also a gig of ram being wasted unless you got 64 bit windows.

No didn't do that. And there are a million things running. I don't what they are.

How do i clear it all? It's MSCONFIG or something?

AlmightyCushion

That's a fairly good processor so it isn't that. Just keep looking at task manager until it spikes to 100%, keep scrolling until you find the culprit.

chamar

I dunno guys.........I've disabled most of those programs but CPU usage is still at 100% even though when I'm looking at processes in task manager the cpu usage of what all the processes that are running are only adding up to about 30%.

My old 5 year old laptop with 512ram was actually better!

if anyone can help me figure this i would appreciate it!

AlmightyCushion

Is it running at 30% while idle? It shouldn't be that high. What programs are using up that 30%?

chamar

simply scrolling through a loaded page will see firefox go to nearly 50% cpu usage

task manager itself is about 10%

maybe it's just a crap processor?

kaizersoze

What anti virus are you running?

chamar

kaizersoze wrote: »

What anti virus are you running?

macafee

chamar

More joy........! Office 2000 won't install on Windows Vista. Bloody Gates, does he not have enough money??????

AlmightyCushion

chamar wrote: »

More joy........! Office 2000 won't install on Windows Vista.

It should work.

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Installing-Office-2000-Vista-t179591.html
http://www.appscout.com/2007/03/office_2000_on_vista.php

DannyBuoy

kaizersoze wrote: »

Did you do a clear out since you got it?
ie. Get rid of McAfee/Norton, everything Google, empty the start up folder and turn off all the Dell support software.

What progs are running in the background?

There's also a gig of ram being wasted unless you got 64 bit windows.

+1
The amount of stuff (rubbish) that comes bundled with new laptops is crazy. Uninstall everything you dont need. Then figure out whats keeping the processor usage up.

yoyo

Get rid of McAfee, that slows down desktops/laptops allot, I've seen new dells crawl coz of it and the other loaded stuff aswell (Both on XP & Vista), tbh uninstall all google apps, Mc Afee, Norton stuff if on it, dell network center or whatever, and disable the other stuff from starting up using msconfig

Nick

kaizersoze

chamar wrote: »

macafee

Dump it and download AVG. Even with McAfee disabled it has a load of stuff running in the background.

More joy........! Office 2000 won't install on Windows Vista. Bloody Gates, does he not have enough money??????

It should work. What happens when you try to install it?

chamar

Okay, will dump mcafee.......the error i keep getting when installing office 200 is something like

error 12345 error reading from file

then it gives the filepath e:\pfiles\msoffice\office\xxx.xx

verify that the file exists and that you can access it

the option is cancel/retry/ignore..........so i retried for a while, cancelled for while, now i've started from scratch and am ignoring all (the msg keeps coming up for different files......)


don't think it's ever gonna work..........probably microsofts way of getting people to shell out for the latest versions.....

yoyo

Office 2k dont work on Vista, Min version is office XP (Version 2002 up) afaik,

Nick

chamar

BTW!, if anyone can point me in the direction of a cheap online source of MS Office I would be grateful.

After Office 2000 not installing I went on a scout and am coming back with €300+ for the latest package.........so I am livid that I can't install my old version which is all i need!

DannyBuoy

chamar wrote: »

Okay, will dump mcafee.......the error i keep getting when installing office 200 is something like

error 12345 error reading from file

then it gives the filepath e:\pfiles\msoffice\office\xxx.xx

verify that the file exists and that you can access it

the option is cancel/retry/ignore..........so i retried for a while, cancelled for while, now i've started from scratch and am ignoring all (the msg keeps coming up for different files......)


don't think it's ever gonna work..........probably microsofts way of getting people to shell out for the latest versions.....

That error sounds like a cd problem, ie, the installation source may be dodgy, try copying the cd onto the hard drive and then installing from there, might work... Office2k is supposed to work on Vista but apparently Outlook may have some issues. The student version of Office seems good value, was last time I looked in PC world anyway. Any point in going for free open source alternative such as Open Office?

yoyo

Actually googleling says the basics all but outlook 2000 should work in Vista, try a custom install and untick outlook, failing that try open office as DannyBuoy suggests

Nick

subway

if you work for a company that has microsoft volume licensing in place you may be eligible for the ms "home use program"
https://hup.microsoft.com/

ask your boss / IT person and if they are a member you can get office for fairly cheap

more info
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa/benefits/home_use_rights.mspx

jimmycrackcorm

To tell what is taking all the processor activity, you should alt-ctrl-del and run the task manager. then click on the CPU title nder processes to sort in order of activity, that will list the most hungry activities ascending or descending.

I have a newish Dell laptop at work too that was crawling along. iIgot the memory boosted to the max but have since realized that the problem is the hard drive is so slow that it's the bottleneck.

chamar

yoyo wrote: »

Actually googleling says the basics all but outlook 2000 should work in Vista, try a custom install and untick outlook, failing that try open office as DannyBuoy suggests

Nick

Just copying the disk to the hard drive - it says it will take 4 days & 2 hours!!??

Is that right?

chamar

Actually, the time keeps changing. It also seems to be missing some files so I guess maybe the CD itself is the problem?..

yoyo

Is the cd scratched/dirty? Do other computers read it? If so copy the cd on another pc and then try install it with the copy, if its talking ages to read the disk and then showing errors the drive is having difficulty with it, try wiping the disc with a damp cloth from the center ring outwards and then drying it the same way (Center out wards) being careful not to further damage it

Nick

chamar

Doesn't work on the old pc either. Weird, because the CD looks perfect.

Guess I'll just have to buy the new version...

RoyalMarine

lads would it not be easier for him to format the laptop and re-install vista?
thus removing everything that can cause a problem and leave no trace of sh*te on the harddrive.

then he can just install what he needs.

yoyo

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

lads would it not be easier for him to format the laptop and re-install vista?
thus removing everything that can cause a problem and leave no trace of sh*te on the harddrive.

then he can just install what he needs.

The Dell OEM cds prob still contain all the crap anyways, it always takes ages reloading OS's with dells provided discs as the crap installs along with them, McAfee could be a seperate install though, I reccomend using the porgrams and features control in control panel to remove the junk or run Dell Decrapifier which should do it for you (here,

Nick

chamar

Just wondering.......if I buy MS Office online from the US will it install okay on an irish laptop?