Just to add....
The memory is 128mb/266mhz/DDR/CL2.5
Do I need to know any more than that, and what is CL?
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You do need more than 128MB for XP. It runs fine with 384 on my four-year old Dell but you may as well go for more if it doesn't cost a lot extra.
I'm no expert on PC memory, but whenever I've needed any I've always bought it from www.crucial.com/uk/ . The advantage of using this company is that you can enter the exact model of PC or motherboard on their site and it'll tell you what you need. This will be a very straightforward matter with a Dell.
One other Dell tip is to go to their web site with the PC's service tag. It'll give you a lot of information about the system, complete with manuals and other downloads.
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..and the advantage of the Dell support website is that you can download the drivers for your specific Dell machine, which should be optimised, whereas "standard" Windows drivers, will make things work, but not necessarily in the best way.
What's it slow doing? Booting up, loading apps, running high power games, browsing? AGP graphics is desirable but not essential unless you are running graphics intensive apps. Dell machines often have an onboard 64mb graphics chip (I think) so are not such a bad spec for everyday use.
The problem, if there is a junior about, is more likely to be things have been installed or doenloaded either wittingly (???) or unwittingly which are stretching system capacity. If it's XP a good place to start is look at processes (in Ctrl/Alt/Delete) and sort by CPU usage. Then have a look at performance. Also disk usage - a few hundred MP3s and videos can soon fill a small disk, resulting in pagefile problems.
Good Luck.
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CL is a term to describe its maximum rated speed (including latency, refesh rate etc.)
Dell use micron memory (crucial) mostly, but to buy it from Dell is expensive. Go here for the memory type you need:
www.crucial.com/uk/index.asp
and buy it at dabs or elsewhere.
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Thanks for the answers chaps. Actually not got me too far yet - it's an amazing piece of kit with no model no./name on it other than 'DHM' and several different on the mobo, any of which might be the board number.
The Dell website tells me I don't have cookies enabled (I do, in Firefox, so it's probably demanding IE). It won't let me go any further.
The crucial site offered me a list of Dell kit, but since I can't find any of them on the puter, I'm a bit stuck.
Only thing that has occurred to me, looking at the contents of SP2, is, does he need it if ZA is running?
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If you want to find the exact specs of the PC download a copy of Sisoft Sandra 2004. It will tell you what type of ram is installed and if you can add any more.
On the issue of SP2. Despite what M$ say, it's still full of security holes and although the firewall in SP2 is better than SP1, a well configured free firewall such as Zonealarm or Sygate is much more reliable.
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Thanks for the answers chaps. Actually not got me too far yet - it's an amazing piece of kit with no model no./name on it other than 'DHM' and several different on the mobo, any of which might be the board number.
You shouldn't need to poke about inside to find the info you need to identify the PC. The Dell service tag is just a short sequence of letters and digits. On all the Dells I've ever seen it's been on a label on the outside. On mine it consists of five characters and is on a bar coded label on the back of the PC case.
There's no point in trying to identify the motherboard. Sorry if I implied that you needed to do that in my earlier post: you just need the model of PC. I'm surprised that there's nothing on the outside identify it.
Dell use their own customised versions of (I think) Intel boards. I believe this means that Dell boards don't fit generic PC cases and vice versa.
To buy the correct memory from a company like Crucial you should just need the PC model name and I think you'll get that if you enter the service tag on the Dell site. See support.euro.dell.com/ .
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It's turning into a nightmare that's only just begun.
Against my better judgement, I fired it up. The desktop came up pretty fast, then a load of grey boxes that kept re-opening, particularly some Yahoo netmeeting nonsense. Fool thing can't even detect it's not online.
I installed the Belarc utility to provide a system report and all it told me was the ram size and model DHPTM.
Thing was, this tiny util took about 8-10 mins to look around and report, and when I tried another fairly small app I got:-
"Not enough quota is available to process this" !!
Why can't they say memory?
It seemed to be getting slower, so I decided to jack it in until I can get that memory, went through the farcical closedown procedure in XP - are you sure? - try another option - which was still running 8 mins later so I turned it off at the switch.
Expect I shall be punished for that at next powerup.
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I would say slap Antivirus, spybot etc on it before doing anything else - it will take all weekend anyway at that rate.
PCW or PC Pro gave away F-Secure Antivirus with 6 months free updates on the last copy. Have a look in the newsagent.
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sounds like too many things being loaded at start up.
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check how much free space you have on the hard drive, sounds like it may not have enough to swap out memory
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check how much free space you have on the hard drive, sounds like it may not have enough to swap out memory
Almost the first thing I did 32/40 gigs free.
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sounds like too many things being loaded at start up.
>>
That's what I wondered but a C-A-D only showed the MS Office toolbar and the taskbar only had a tool watching for a usb memory stick.
Nothing in the startup folder, but I didn't try MSCONFIG this time because my eyes were beginning to glaze over and it probably wouldn't have run anayway.
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You need to come up in safe mode and start disabling everything you can find....
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Or get into task manager and cancel stuff as you see it start.
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Yep, agree with Mark, try Safe Mode. Then try running something like word, or your app, in Safe Mode. If it makes all the difference then you know that it's something that's being loaded at Normal startup that's causing it.
You can check msconfig for oddities. Also, assuming it's a legit XP, get the MS spyware checker - it may not be the best, but I like it and it's free!
Another little tip - look in c:\windows and c:\windows\system and sort the files by date/time. Sometimes you will see hudreds (I once saw thousands) of v small files all with virtually the same creation time/date. That was a trojan.
One last thought - check how the display os set up - sometimes using 32 million colours on an underpowered graphics card will cause excessive slowness in some applications. Or, to put it another way, reducing the number of colours in use often speeds up a system...
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Buy your memory from Crucial - it's top quality memory, the company has a staggering high level of customer service and attention and will provide you with the exact memory you require from the details of your system.
Re the Microsoft AV - it's free now (still in beta form), but it won't be in six months...
Use AVG7 (the free version) instead from www.grisoft.com; install, update immediately for the latest virus definitions and check regularly for updates. It also checks both incoming and outgoing e-mails for viruses etc.
Adware can be blocked/eliminated with Ad-Aware SE Personal from www.lavasoft.com and Search and Destroy 1.3 from www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html (both work well in conjunction with each other). Again update regularly.
Finally, SpywareBlaster works in the background to block adware and malware:
www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
Needs updating much less often but stops much of the stuff from getting on the system in the first place.
Or switch to Mozilla Thunderbird (e-mails) and Firefox 1.0 (browser) - vastly more secure than IE and OE, updates very rare and download much quicker. Utilities such as Ad-Aware and S and D become virtually redundant as a result...:-)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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I hope this does not fall under the 'name and shame' embargo - I believe this to be germane to the postings and the pertinent fact can readily be verified, in the public domain, from the Lavasoft website -- I invite thse interested to look there.
A warning for anyone considering buying Ad-Aware Professional, as I did. It did not work, and I soon discovered that this is because it will only work with Internet Explorer, and I use Firefox. There is no warning to this effect on the Lavasoft website and, more specifically, Internet Explorer is not listed as a system requirement.
When I first encountered the problem, Lavasoft confirmed that IE is a system requirement. I then pointed out that they appear to be in breach of current European consumer legislation and asked for a refund. I got no reply, and have met only silence ever since.
Simply refusing to reply to an email on the subject is a shabby tactic.
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... it will only work with Internet Explorer, and Iuse Firefox.
Which version of Windows do you have? It's virtually impossible to remove IE in any recent version, even if you use another browser.
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I have WinXp SP2, but haven't removed IE. It's simply redundant, but if nothing else you still come across the odd site that will only work on IE. Nothing would please me more than to get rid of the wretched thing entirely. However, I'm not seeking to turn this into an IE versus Mozilla topic. My point is that buyers of Ad-Aware Professional need to be aware of its limitations and I'm quite hoppy if the mods want to leave the plain warning, but remove my adverse comments about Lavasoft.
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My point is that buyers of Ad-Aware Professional need to be aware of its limitations...
You said that IE is a system requirement and you you obviously have it so what's the problem?
Do you just mean that AdAware only checks IE cookies? If so, that's not the end of the world as Firefox has some pretty good cookie handling facilities of its own. You can set it permanently to reject cookies from certain sites. The safest option is obviously to get it to reject cookies from all but a favoured few sites including (obviously) this one.
Firefox is inherently more secure than IE so there's less need for spyware killers if you use it.
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"I then pointed out that they appear to be in breach of current European consumer legislation and asked for a refund. I got no reply, and have met only silence ever since."
Now how do you work that one out?
It states IE is a system requirement, - you had it, it installed, and works on IE.
Did it state anywhere "works with Firefox"? NO? so what are they in breach of?
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It states IE is a system requirement, - you had it, it installed, and works on IE. Did it state anywhere "works with Firefox"? NO? so what are they in breach of?
I'm still not quite clear what the problem is, unless it's the cookie checking issue I mentioned in my other post. I'm a satisfied user of both AdAware (free version) and Firefox. They coexist quite happily.
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This is Ad-Aware *Professional*, not the freeware (with which I have had no problem). The extra functions for which you pay (and for which you are invited to udgrade) are compatible only with IE but you find thi the hard way. This was their reply (in the context of the professional version, not the freeware):
Dear Customer,
We´re sorry to inform you that AdAware at the present time is only compatible with Internet Explorer.
Regards,
Andreas
Lavasoft Support
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Thanks, but I'm aware of that. Ad-Aware Professional(it is claimed) is about much more than cookies, which is why I upgraded from the freeware version (or tried to).
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The above was meant to be a response to the kind contribution by Welliesorter above.
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As someone who's done most of this stuff in the past few days, again as a favour, I can tell you it's a lot quicker to install everything from scratch.
If you do, remember to apply SP2 and all the security stuff before connecting the PC to the net: use your own PC to download everything. An article explaining why is at www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/19/infected_in20_min.../ .
At least Dell provide something resembling a proper Windows CD so the task shouldn't be too hard. It's less time-consuming than trying to diagnose any problems.
If it turns out that the PC has a hardware fault, remember that most Dells have a three year warranty.
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Many thanks for all your replies - some very useful suggestions and information in there.
I'm more or less going to let it stew for a few days while I get hold of some more RAM for it - it's going to be all uphill until I can sort out what is causing problems AFTER the upgrade.
to be continued.......
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to be continued.......
Well, I have added 256mB RAM, which should be enough for his use and started installing various odds & ends - Adaware found 32 real nasties and a lot of dodgy ones besides.
Two further questions for now - does XP not have Scandisk? Can't even find it doing a scan*.* filesearch.
Also, does anyone know of a vrus/etc that actually eats ZoneAlarm? I thought his son might have deleted it, but the folder is still there, together with some mangled remains.
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Scandisk is the same as Checkdisk isn't it? It's in Properties/Tools when you right click on the required disk in My Computer. (Called error checking).
I'm sure I've seen it manually invoked at start up (i.e. in DOS mode) and I've certainly seen it (with a light blue screen) invoked automatically at start up but I'm not sure how to make the former work.
Some virii will have a go at disabling virus checkers and firewalls but I've never seen the result - I suspect they will kill the scanning processes rather than mangle the files. Could be an indication of a disk problem (or at least, a busted table of contents/FAT/whatever)
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Thanks for that smokie, I'll have a look as soon as I can solve the big problem I have come up against.
The computer is normally on broadband but I had to install a 56k dialup modem to use it here. It's showing as working OK but when I click on the connect button all that happens is the data LED flashes briefly - it doesn't dial and the 'off hook' remains unlit!
Sound familiar, anyone?
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Put a socket doubler on the modem wall socket and plug a phone in alongside the modem. Listen on the phone to see if it makes any attempt to dial (or even to check there is a dial tone!).
Maybe the COM port is stuffed.
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If on broadband.if the modem wont connect it usualy comes up with an error code. its usualy either software not installed correctly or drivers..broadband is always on it has no need to dial out.only connect to server
--
Steve
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I had to use a phone extension lead for this caper, so checked it with a phone, just in case.
What is likely to be the problem, still unsolved, is that the computer boots with the two little arrow logo on the taskbar - suggesting it is automatically firing up into bb mode and, although the dialup modem is selected, something is stopping it functioning correctly.
I am loathe to uninstall the bb modem and setup, but there is no sign in msconfig, startup, or anywhere else I can find that is auto-running bb.
It's most frustrating because this would be the last stage in restoring it to full health via some internet-based checks.
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I think the bb thing is a bit of a red herring. There is nothing stopping you (usually) from using a dial up connection while also connected to bb at the same time.
However you may need to tell your product (IE) which connection to use (Internet Options//Connections), or set the dial up as the default, in case it thinks it has a bb connection. I'm sure you've already tried this.
One thing you could look at is the IP config. Open a CMD window and type IPCONFIG then press enter. It will list your adapters and their IP address etc. It might have an address in the subnet of the bb provider, and be holding and trying to use that because it thinks it's connected. If so, release that address (type IPCONFIG /release). That wouldn't stop the modem getting it's own address, but conceivably it could stop it trying to connect over the modem (or, at least, making it use the bb in preference).
Can you tell I'm guessing? :-)
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