Jeff and .NET

How right you are. Fomatting a new Dell PC is a must.

Not only have I noticed a substantial reduction in boot time, but I bet I get a 20% increase in performance in general.

I just got a similar Inspiron 6000 - I got a 1.8~something GHz cpu, 2 GB RAM and 1920 x 1200 res screen. Sadly the screen did not work properly "out of the box" but once they fixed that it has worked very nicely. I re-installed XP pro from scratch too. It rocks for VPC.

Heh I too got an inspiron 6000 very recently (1.8ghz) (though not with the discount you got), and maaan was it slow the first time I booted it, indeed Dell loads a lot of crap on it, I had 15 or so icons in the system tray!

After repavement, it's very very nice.

To get it actually from Dell was another story though. I had to call in 3 times to get my order re-re-re-resubmitted and it worked. I ordered a laptop bag 2 days ago and I haven't received a confirmation again... they start to fall apart apparently.

Did you know they re-enter every order made online in their system by hand (in india) ? Neither did I until I suddenly had a 17" monitor on another order I didn't include online. After phoning them, they explained that to me. Amazing, how a company who advertises 24/7 business is critical-kinda blabla isn't very up to speed with modern technologies...

I recently ordered a Dell, then the next day decided to cancel the order. I called Dell to cancel the order and they informed me that it had already shipped. The rep on the phone then said "What if we give you another $75 off the price, would you keep it then? I told him I would think about it and he then said "If you decide to keep it at full price, we'll give you $100 worth of Dell accessories."

Barter with them after it's been shipped...you may just get additional $$ off :)

"The only minor complaint I had was that I had to blow away the entire hard drive and nuke all of the crap that Dell loaded on it. Seriously, it took several minutes to boot, so I figured it was easier just to start over and download the drivers. "



Hey, sorry if this is a very dumb question, but.... how do you reformat the hardrive on a new dell, and how do you then download new drivers after (re)installing xp? i guess you had to buy xp (not the upgrade) as well....

anyone with some patience care to walk this newbie thru the process step by step? (think of it as your "good deed" for the week?)

shortly after i bought my desktop (dimension 8400 with all the bells and whistles) and hooked up the dsl, i got a virus. (mcafee caught it, but in the process of eliminating it, theeir website help sight directions said to turn of "restore", do the "fix", then turn restore back on. obviously, that eliminates the possibility of "restoring" my pc back to "just out of the box" condition if i encounter any problems down the line...which, at this point, i have....
anyways, thanks in advance!
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Well, BEFORE you repave a dell hdd, first backup 'drivers' and 'dell' folders to a usb stick. Then repave, then copy these back and run the driver reset utility in one of these dell folders. Reboot, bingo :)

System Restore is not a reinstall of XP- it's just a "safety net" that allows you to go back a day or so if you have some sort of system error (like a bad driver update, etc...). I've had it fix a few things- not a bad thing to have available.

I actually have no trouble when reinstalling with an OEM CD & then going through & manually removing all of the junk/demoware afterwards. It's isn't necessary to have a retail XP disc to speed up your PC substantially. I just delivered an HP PC that is now absolutely like lightning compared to how it was "out of the box".

Save your data first (including backing up your address book & email settings). Here's how I do an OEM cleanup:

After reinstalling, go into add/remove programs to remove the junkware tossed in by whoever you bought your computer from (ANY demo- including & especially the bloated Norton or McAfee)- there are better freeware programs available than the stuff they inject. Keep the antivirus in place until you have the one mentioned below* downloaded on your PC. If you're on broadband, unplug from the net while you uninstall one/install the other. I also like to restart the PC between these two steps.

Get Firefox web browser from here & install it: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Make it your default browser. It’s less likely to pick up spyware, due to it’s default settings, than Internet Explorer.

Once installed, open it & go to tools>extensions>get more extensions. You want to search, download, & install “Adblock” & “IEView”. Adblock lets you right-click an image on a page & block it. IEView lets you right-click a page, if it has been designed to render properly only in Internet Explorer, & choose “open in IE”- which launches that same page in IE. Feel free to peruse all of the other extensions. I also use “Foxytunes” music player. Note: extensions do not take effect until you close & reopen Firefox.

Get, from www.majorgeeks.com:

Diskeeper Lite (defragmenter),

Adaware (spyware remover),
Spybot: Search & Destroy (spyware remover),
Microsoft Antispyware (W2K & XP only),
<-- yes, you should use all three…>

*AVG antivirus,
Zonealarm firewall- all of these programs are free.

Firefox downloads everything to your desktop, by default. When you install Zonealarm, make sure you choose the free version during the setup (not the free trial)…

Install & run Diskeeper. Install/update & run the rest after you defrag.

Right-click My Computer>properties>advanced tab>performance settings>tick "adjust for best performance"- which will clear all boxes>then tick the last 6 items only>apply/Ok. System restore tab>adjust to 3% max. from 12% default. 12% of any drive is an awful lot of "reserved" space. Most people restore back one or two days when they see a problem- you don't need weeks-worth of restore points.

Right-click My Computer>explore>right-click "C" drive>properties>disk cleanup. When the cleanup is done, uncheck "allow indexing to index this drive"- this is a major drag on your system & I have found no issues whatsoever turning this off- but a big overall performance increase. If a box comes up saying it cannot change/access a certain file- click "ignore or ignore all" & it will complete.

Get all Windows updates. Defrag, again, after they are all done & up-to-date. Lastly, right-click My Computer>explore>right-click "C" drive>properties>tools>error checking>tick both boxes & restart after the dialog box tells you it needs to run at the next boot. This is checking that none of the system files are corrupt. There are 5 stages- 1-3 go fast, 4 & 5 take longer (average 15- 20 mins. total to complete).


I have all of these previously mentioned programs set to be run, manually, once per week- the exception being AVG & Zonealarm. I have Windows automatic updating turned off- but that is up to you. If you don't think you can remember to run a small set of programs once a week- you can autoset them. However, if you install many programs
that must monitor your system 24/7, such as this, you will begin to see a performance hit. I also feel that manually running a program puts you more “in touch” with the workings of the program.

If you have SP2 (service pack 2) you will be constantly nagged by MS pop-ups about your system & security unless you disable the alerts:

Start>control panel>security center>on the left-hand side- uncheck all of the boxes that are listed under the “change the way security center alerts me”.


I create a folder on my desktop: "run once per week", & drag the desktop icons into this folder. That way, I don’t forget to run any of them- they’re all in one place.

There are a few other tweaks but we’ll start with this. Let me know if this makes sense & if there are any questions?

Tracy
tuppertutor(at)hotmail.com

dude, my finance got a dell 6000 and its freakin slowwwww. like almost as slow as her old 700mhz p3 ibm. can all that shitty software slow it down that much? i'd rather just uninstall stuff that wipe it.

Mine performs really well unless I run Photoshop, but as the disk churning indicates, that's because I only got 256 MB of RAM. Will likely upgrade sooner or later.

I got a similar deal back in october. Love those $750 off 1500.

I'm sure you will find you like it. I got an 8600 with similar specs as yours and haven't run into any issues and I'm able to run VS, illustrator, or photoshop with no problems.