I am hoping someone can provide me with some advice on this issue because my Dell is so painfully slow that it is a misery to use it at this point. I'm not a techie so I don't know where to look.
I own a Dell Studio XPS 9100 working with Windows XP. I have a broadband cable modem with a brand new router.
The system is unbelievably slow. On top of that, at least 50% of the time I load a page on the internet, I get a message that the system is "not responding" and I lose connectivity. Even when I connect, pages take forever to load and I almost never get to watch a video clip without it stopping in the middle. I tested the following potential problems:
1) The Browser: People always say the problem is Windows Internet Explorer. In order to address this I loaded Firefox and Google Chrome. the same connectivity problems affect those browsers too so I don't think it is Explorer.
2) The Cable Connection: I completed the Ping test and the speeds are within a healthy range. But when using a laptop off of the same router, there are no connectivity problems. That would seem to rule out the cable company, but perhaps there is still a problem with the connection to my PC?
3) The Computer: I feel like there is something wrong with the computer, but when I do the Dell Diagnostics Test, everything comes up as "passed test". It can't be hard drive storage because I have 90% free space
4) My Memory: How do I know how much memory I have and whether it is sufficient for today's applications? It may be that too many programs are running at the same time but I don't know how to check this.
5) My Virus Protection: I have McAfee and BitDefender and each time I do a test there are no viruses. That having been said, could it be that having two virus protection programs slows the system? Should I get rid of one of them? I also have an Anti-Malware program that shows nothing out of ordinary.
Any help would be appreciated.