If you own Dell stock and are less than pleased with the performance, I’m afraid that it’s partly my fault.
You see, it’s almost daily that someone asks me whether the remedy to their slow pc is to buy a new one.
“How old is it?”, I ask. If the answer is 4 years or less, then I can presume that:
- They probably have a Pentium 4
- They probably don’t have Windows ME
- They probably can add RAM real cheap (Rambus excepted)
Case in point over the weekend. Pentium 4 1.7, 512MB RAM, decent 7200rpm hard drive. Windows 2000 Pro was installed, along with all kinds of picture and photo printer garbage. Ran like a hog with no legs.
I backed up all of the data, twice, and did a clean install of Windows XP Pro. Be innovative and you can pick up a copy of XP cheap, if not free. Possibly even legally 
Ok, just kidding. I don’t recommend pirating software, but between extra open license copies, cheap OEM licenses, legitimate educational copies – you get the idea.
At 512 RAM, this machine didn’t even need any money spent on it.
After the clean install of Windows XP Pro and just the needed software, no extra garbage, and this PC came to life.
Unless you are running the latest and greatest high intensity software, chances are that a clean install (after 2 backups!) will give you back that new PC performance you haven’t had in years.
