Hi

I bought a dell inspiron 1501 notebook for my G/F & its running very slowly it takes over half an hour to start up and when it does finaly get going opening any programme small or large it takes for ever.

what could be wrong with it and what could i try and do to speed it up a bit

any help would be appricated

thanks

If you haven't done so, run your antivirus program as well as AdAware and Spybot Search and Destoy, both free. Possibly infected. If she's had it for a well download CClean http://ccleaner.en.softonic.com/ and eusing free registry cleaner http://www.eusing.com/free_registr [...] eaner.htm. Run these programs in Safe Mode and after you've run them defrag the drive(s)

How much RAM is in it?
Did it always run slow?
Was there "Automatic Updates" that got downloaded and installed that needed to configure?
Was the VISTA "indexing service" active or recently active?
Those are the main offenders.

well it would help to know the specs of your system, did it come with vista or did u install afterwards etc etc. There can a number of ways to it operate smoother and quicker.
You can disable uncessary programs that start up upon the loading of windows. Use mcsonfig to do this. You can also disable certain windows services that are not needed. have a look at www.tweakvista.com. Go the performance section and see where you can disable certain windows services.
hmm, again cant say much not knowing your system specs. Im guessing you might have 512mb ram. Try using the readyboost feature to help also.

It has 1gb of ram it also came with vista installed

i have removed mcafee anit virus as she had that running along side avg aswel so it operates slightly quicker now but still very slow

Iam also running a defrag to see if that helps and removing so unused programmes that have been installed an no longer used.

I also vista premium with 1gb ram, dell inspiron 6400. It runs smooth, with mcafee virus (i only installed mcafee antivirus, didnt install the other crap like mcafee firewall and others).
For defrag, i would recommend you use perfectdisk 8(only that runs with vista). its 30 day trial, but its good.
Click on start, and in search type msconfig. Goto the startup area and unselect any program that dont need to be started up. For eg, if you have yahoo messenger, just disable auto startup. you can always open it after windows has loaded.
So it came with vista installed, meaning its a fairly new laptop, about say 5 months old. Did you reinstalled vista, or are you running it the same as it came when you bought it? Because dell does load alot of uncessary crap programs that use your resources more. When my dell came, the first thing i did was to reformat it, i re-partitioned it (so i could have dual boot) and reinstalled vista. Then i only loaded the necessary programs i needed. Then from there, you keep it maintained.

Right click on the taskbar to open the task manager and see how many processes are running. I have about 6-7 programs running, and have 59 processes. Will give you a rough idea if you have alot of unwanted things to remove. hollar if you need any more help. cheers!

Man 1 GB RAM + VISTA = bad performance.
I would recommend a trip to NewEgg and get some RAM for that dog.

I agree. Vista, particularly on a lower end notebook, requires a surprising amount of ram. I have 2gbs in mine, and it still runs slower than I think it should. Find out how much it will take and put in the maximum. It makes a huge difference.

1gb of Ram isnt slow or bad as you all say on vista. With the right settings it would run smooth. But, 2gb is ideal though, which would be more than enough for most currently. Extreme hardcore pc users would disagree of course