PC Help
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My son has a three year old Dell Inspiron 195 all-in-one computer.
SLOW AF. Like you hit the start menu and it takes 5+ seconds for the menu to pop up.
Trying to figure out if there’s a fix I should pursue or upgrade.
All he does is use a browser for school and play Minecraft for fun.
Windows 10 Home
10.0.18362Intel Pentium J3710 @ 1.6GHz, 4 cores
4GB ram
1 TB hard drive (doubt it’s solid state)Yeah, yeah. We have a bunch of Macs. I want him to learn Windows too. (Chrome is used at school)
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How can I swap to SSD?
For example, do they make one that fits? (remember this is all-in-one like an iMac)
When I go to Dell.com there's no evidence my model ever existed.
Can I move the OS and apps over first?
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I'd try a fresh Windows installation.
My guess is that he installed all kinds of "stuff". Windows is well-known for degenerating and becoming slower over time.
How do I do that?
You need a windows install DVD/USB stick, etc.
You can do a clean install over the existing install and nothing will be lost.
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I'd try a fresh Windows installation.
My guess is that he installed all kinds of "stuff". Windows is well-known for degenerating and becoming slower over time.
How do I do that?
Note that all data and all installed programs will be lost, so make sure to safe everything that you want to keep.
I wouldn't suggest to try a reinstall that keeps old stuff (as Mark suggested) because that will also keep the stuff that slows your PC down. Start again from a blank slate and you'll have the performance as on day one.
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I'd try a fresh Windows installation.
My guess is that he installed all kinds of "stuff". Windows is well-known for degenerating and becoming slower over time.
How do I do that?
You need a windows install DVD/USB stick, etc.
You can do a clean install over the existing install and nothing will be lost.
Looks like I can do it straight from Windows. This from the Dell site:
Seems ambiguous, it keeps my files but I need to reinstall apps? How does that work?
(not that I care, it's just Minecraft)
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I'd try a fresh Windows installation.
My guess is that he installed all kinds of "stuff". Windows is well-known for degenerating and becoming slower over time.
How do I do that?
Note that all data and all installed programs will be lost, so make sure to safe everything that you want to keep.
I wouldn't suggest to try a reinstall that keeps old stuff (as Mark suggested) because that will also keep the stuff that slows your PC down.
It's the safest and easiest thing to try first. It might just help. Sometimes the system itself just gets corrupted.
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's the safest and easiest thing to try first. It might just help.
That's true, one could first try this and if that doesn't help to the "clean slate" approach I suggested.
However, as far as I understand, no important stuff is stored or installed on the PC, so it may not be worth bothering with saving old stuff and just make everything fresh.
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That's true, one could first try this and if that doesn't help to the "clean slate" approach I suggested.
However, as far as I understand, no important stuff is stored or installed on the PC, so it may not be worth bothering with saving old stuff and just make everything fresh.Yes, but this is available to use now and without any additional steps.
Try it. You have nothing to lose. Especially since you said there is nothing on the machine but Minecraft.
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Jon, the same thing happened to Lucas’ computer when he was playing a lot of Minecraft. There are a lot of little 3rd party downloads these kids install that are safe and from trusted sites but are poorly written and slow the hell out of everything.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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I use CCleaner, it is OK
If you have some time and you are curious here are 2 things to try
1
Go down to the bottom left where it says "Type here to search"
Type "Task manager" no quotes
When the App logo comes up, click it
On the processes Tab click the CPU column to sort by CPU use and see if something is hogging the machine
Look around to see if there is something that looks odd
2
Go down to the bottom left where it says "Type here to search"
Type "Event Viewer" no quotes
This will probably run kind of slowly
This is where lots of different Logs are kept
I once had a problem where the machine was running very slowly for no apparent reason. I used this App to find a log message that was being repeated 10-20 times per second. It was an error trying to read the DVD drive happening a couple dozen times per second. There wasn't even a disk in the drive, it was idle. I disconnected the DVD drive and all of a sudden the machine was fast again.
Flip through some logs, you might spot something.
