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    M17xR3 is slow.

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by imranh101, Jun 21, 2012.

  1. imranh101

    imranh101 Notebook Guru

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    Really. It is stupidly slow.
    It is slower than my 2.4ghz Celeron Toshiba laptop was.
    Opening a folder in windows explorer? That'll take a good 20 seconds. Trying to open CPU-Z? Good luck that takes 2 minutes. Go take a while you wait.
    It was like this when I had fresh installed Windows, too.
    I will download/install/run Malware Bytes and Spybot S&D so people don't tell me "check for virus!!!" even though I know that's not the problem.
    I have hardly any installed (Steam, a couple games, Chrome, CPU-Z/GPU-Z and CCleaner is about it).
    i7 2630qm 2ghz quadcore/8thread
    16gb RAM
    460m
    Why is this so slow?
    I've tried defrag and registry cleans to no avail.
     
    imranh101, Jun 21, 2012
    #1
  2. Bartlett

    Bartlett The Prophet

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    Bad hard drive, bad/corrupt Windows installation, maybe some bad drivers...etc.

    Have you tried reinstalling Windows?
     
    Bartlett, Jun 21, 2012
    #2
  3. imranh101

    imranh101 Notebook Guru

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    I was considering it but it took long enough to get all of this set up and 200gb of Steam games installed that I really don't want to do it unless I have to. Ill keep it in mind though.
     
    imranh101, Jun 21, 2012
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  4. SkittlesXD

    SkittlesXD Notebook Consultant

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    What speed is the hard drive?
     
    SkittlesXD, Jun 21, 2012
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  5. livid

    livid Notebook Consultant

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    Sounds like a bad hard drive indeed. Have you ran the Dell diagnostics on the hard drive?
     
    livid, Jun 21, 2012
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  6. Na8331

    Na8331 Notebook Consultant

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    This is all dependent on the speed of the hard drive. Adding 200 Gb of programs will definitely reduce the performance of a hard drive.
    There are two reasons your computer could be slow/acting up.
    1. Your running on a 5400 RPM drive.
    2. Your hard drive is corrupt/faulty (More likely the case here).

    RAM/Processor speed/GPU all play little to no role in the speed of opening up programs/file.

    Check your hard drive or upgrade to a Solid state drive.
     
    Na8331, Jun 21, 2012
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  7. vadupleix

    vadupleix Notebook Consultant

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    Having the same problem in my old lap I'm 80% sure that the problem is with the disk, however I don't bother to fix it now as I have a new m17 now. Just remember to make a copy of your important files :)
     
    vadupleix, Jun 21, 2012
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  8. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    You can try running a PSA, at startup press F12 and select diagnostics, if it gives you any errors let us know, this will test the HDD and other components for errors.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Jun 21, 2012
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  9. imranh101

    imranh101 Notebook Guru

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    I ran the dell diagnostic off the site and it found no problem, but not the startup diagnostic.
    I might end up getting a 60GB Agility 3 SSD (Im not super rich but I can buy it, it's 60 then MIRebate to 45...) for boot. Do you think that using an SSD for boot will make it faster while allowing the otehr 640gb HDD to be used for games and such without it slowing them down?
     
    imranh101, Jun 21, 2012
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  10. Zero989

    Zero989 Notebook Virtuoso

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    Sounds like you own a mechanical HDD. Those are painfully slow.
     
    Zero989, Jun 21, 2012
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  11. imranh101

    imranh101 Notebook Guru

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    Yes. But even my Toshiba (sorry to keep bringing it up) that had a 5400RPM drive with a 2.3ghz single core was faster. I can't imagine this would be that much slower.
     
    imranh101, Jun 21, 2012
    #11
  12. hfm

    hfm Notebook Prophet

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    sounds like a hardware problem. 2 minutes to launch cpuz is not normal for any situation.

    Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
     
    hfm, Jun 22, 2012
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  13. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    It should be totally fine. This configuration will make your computer run a lot faster.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Jun 22, 2012
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  14. The_Moo™

    The_Moo™ Here we go again.....

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    Point is that it isn't the fact he is running a mechnaical drive or that its a "5400rpm" drive.

    Likely one of three things:

    Corruption in the windows OS / Virus
    A hard drive going bad. Just run a simple HDtune test.
    RAM usage. I have seen failing memory do this. The Internal diagnostics will check this. If you are not satisfied run memtest86.

    While I don't disagree the SSD is superior the point is in this case it's not needed unless the drive is going bad in which case I say buy a SSD
     
    The_Moo™, Jun 22, 2012
    #14