Slow XP

[Arjay13]

A freind of mine bought a brand new Dell desktop with a P4 2.8Ghz cpu, 7200rpm ata100 hard drive etc. What has struck me from the get go is that this machine is slow. So slow that she thinks that it is slower than her old pc which was something like a P233!
It definitely seesm slower than my P3 600. What could possibly be wrong here? I defragged it but that really didn't seem necessary since she isn't a power user and doesn't install much software or do anything but some word processing and some Print Shop stuff.
Any ideas what the matter could be? I want to get a grip on the problem before I get on the phone to Dell. Thanks.

Arjay

[DanGrease]

How many memory does that machine got? If its 128MB then thats the reason why its so slow. I recommend 512MB minimum for machines that run with WIndows XP. 256MB is OK, but not enough to get best performance with Windows XP.

dan

Edit: I supposed its a machine with Windows XP, since the computer is new, but I have to ask anyways. Whats the OS in that system?

[Arjay13]

Wow - I can't believe I forgot to mention the OS - yeah, it's XP Home and I'm pretty certain that it has 256mB of RAM. Regardless, in my opinion, it's still too slow.

[ooops]

If it was slow from the VERY beginning she needs to call DELL tech support ( God be with her ).
But on the upside she'll get to talk with someone from India LOL

Is she on a broadband connection (DSL-Cable) ?????

If it became slower as she used it and has been on-line , I would suspect some sort of malware or adware/spyware.

Download the free versions of AdAware and SpyBot Search and Destroy.
Get the updated reference files and run both.

[Arjay13]

Well, she is lucky that I will be the unfortunate soul who will be talking to Dell...:-(

She's only on a dialup and doesn't spend much time on line or visit "naughty" websites (so I think)...but I'll take your advice on the Adaware and Spybot..thanks

[SunDizzle]

I agreee with Dan, 512 should the the minimum amount of RAM an XP machine should have.