Inspiron 1520 - Poor Performance Has Me Scratching Head - Any Advice/Insight?

Being the wary soul that I am, and fully aware of the size of this forum, I'll apologize ahead of time if I am retreading an issue beaten to death. Again, let me emphasize: I'm sorry if I'm making a newbie mistake of posting on something that's already prolificly out there! However, I had much troulbe with the forum search tool (kept on not recognizing my keystring ver.) and google was not my friend. I registered just to avail myself of the community wisdom.

I've had my 1520 for ~3 weeks. I am, in no uncertain terms, extremely disappointed with the performance of the machine. I am also boggled / perplexed as to why I'm having these issues.

Based on my specs (t7500, 8600m card, 7200rpm 160gig HD, 2gig ram, the very hi-res screen and an n card being the relevant ones here, vista ultimate also) I thought - I still think - I had created a near-state-of-the-art for 2007 laptop. On paper, this machine should be somewhere in the 'upper end' of laptop machines. All its specs blow away my previous 2002 laptop - a gateway 450xl xpsp2 512ram 32mb ati card, 40gig hd. When I ordered it, I thought: this should last. this experience should be seamless (no pauses, etc.)

It's somewhat hard to explain, which is why I'm hoping some of these symptoms are just 'understood' in this expert community. But like, well, I'll just throw out some examples:

a) even as I type this, the letters on screen are actually LAGGING from my typing. I don't type THAT fast.
b) Similar lag efffect in office 2007 word.
c) When I move through coverflow in iTunes, bad lag. Bad bad lag. Not smooth at all (as compared to, say, on my iphone)
d) Windows Calender just ... it just mystifies / perplexes me to tears in terms of its performance. It seems like a relatively simple straightforward application. But it lags all the time. Holding page down through the calender is nightmere scenario.
e) start-up scenarios involving my favorite program mentioned in d cause about triple length start up times.
f) DreamScene is not smooth at all (this I suspect may be due to its beta status / need for coding refinement - however, I have experimented with it off, and results are not appreciably better)
g) shutdown times are terrible. (have heard this may be due to plain vista coding)
h) expanding folders in startmenu is not instantaneous, there is a second or two delay with the moving circle thingey.
i) populating the icons in the control panel when opened up (especially the first time I do it after the machine has been off) is ... a long labor. Fill bars and circles and waiting. For control panel icons

My hard drive is defraged. My external drives are also defraged. My system is spyware free. Yes, I do have some programs running in the background (thanks Dell) which I have cast a suspicious eye on in terms of performance hit - McAfee (virus scan and firewall only) being the main culprit; HP digital imaging monitor; dell support; dell quickset, etc. But STILL, come on. I've had machines with much lower specs than this one running similar (or even more RAM hungry) background apps and never had these results.

Performance is not horrendous. I've lived with worse (I used the gateway I had until summer of 06, by which time it was definitely showing its age). However, I am stunned because I can't believe with the hardware specs I have, I should be having this user experience.

I can't attest to processor intensive programs yet, because I haven't had occcassion to install anything like that yet (e.g. games, video editing, etc.) But I have an idea what it might be like to run BioShock if coverflow in itunes is giving me problems ...

Does anyone have any suggestions / tips / advice. Is this something that is unique to me, or are lots of other people reporting similar experiences? Help me feel like I didn't just toss $2k out the window on a machine that I'm not happy with from day-1!?!?!?!

 

My machine has quite similar specs to yours, though it's not quite as fast. I actually just returned the one with the specs in my signature and the replacement has a slightly faster processor.

Both iTunes coverflow and Dreamscene are slow for me, too. I had the issue with lagging keys once on my previous machine, but that went away after rebooting it.

Both expanding start menu items and opening up the control panel are slow, but that's not a big deal to me.

Gaming performance has been quite excellent for a laptop. I've played both Oblivion and the Bioshock demo and both were playable at medium settings.

I would considering reinstalling Windows since it sounds like your system may have accumulated a fair amount of cruft.

 

Try getting rid of the bloatware as a start. Next, from the Control Panel, remove apps you don't need. Then trim startup programs, and stop unnecessary processes running in the background. CCleaner would be a good way to finish up.

 

Cover Flow seems to be laggy on every Vista computer I've seen so far.

 

weird, i have no problems with vista (i did a clean install to day i received my 1520)

 

I have the same problem. I got rid of the virus software that came with it (McAfee, switched to avg) and with some vista tweaks and turning off some of vistas bloat it has speed up quite a bit.

We have similar specs. We should not have to do these things to get them running par. Vista has a way to go in my opinion.

 

Do you have antivirus/adware installed?
If so, what kind?

Most of the time system slowdown is caused by viruses/malware or virus/malware scanners.

 

My specs are similar. I am using Vista Home Basic with all the crap uninstalled (not a clean install, though) and it is very speedy. Games run simply perfect with detail turned way up, everything is very responsive, and just a while ago I had a word processor and a large presentation (using OpenOffice), several pages open (10+ firefox tabs), IM and Photoshop CS3 all open at once, while I played Far Cry. No delays, no hiccups, nothing.

Try uninstalling all the bloatware like other people have recommended, and also clean up the programs that start when Windows boots as well as the services.

Go to Run (windows key + r), type msconfig, and click Startup and Services. Remove stuff you don't need.

However, I don't think even the most intensive programs would make your computer as slow as you describe it. Try installing newer video/chipset/etc drivers or wipe Vista and do a clean install. If that doesn't work I guess you have a hardware problem somewhere.

 

Possible, but I doubt that's the issue. Recently I bought a new eMachines desktop. I did not initially do a clean install (can't with eMachines unless you own a legit Windows CD bought elsewhere). After getting rid of TWENTY-TWO bloatware apps, numerous startup programs, and I can't even remember how many processes I disabled, running CCleaner and RegSeeker, Vista ran much better, but was still much slower than XP - which, thankfully, is now in the machine.

@OP: Look here, left column, under "Latest Guides" for advice that I think will be helpful.

 

Honestly, do a format and clean install Vista... I never ran Vista how Dell put it as I formatted to my copy of ultimate as soon as my 1520 was placed in my hands, but I'm sure that is the issue. Simply because my 1520 runs like a wet dream...

 

Hey Arthur. First off - welcome!

Secondly, I'd say that the symptoms/complaints you have regarding your computer are common complaints either I've shared or known someone who's shared, so don't feel bad about you $2K just yet.

I concur that coverflow is laggy on my iTunes install as well, and a lot of this "lag" that you're experiencing sounds a lot like typical Vista chug. As you type things in Word/websites/etc., I bet your HD access light is flashing away, right? It's probably either Vista or an installed bloatware that is thrashing away at your drive and causing that split-second lag that I also find irritating as hell.

If you have the drive to, I say do a fresh format. Not that uninstalling all the bloatware (Norton, McAfee, whatever Dell tossed in that you don't need) in your current installation is a bad idea, but I found that it took a fresh reformat to get rid of the shutdown issue. Mine would take upwards of 10-15mins sometimes, which is ludicrous.

For an exact frame of reference, here's what I did: fresh-installed Vista. Reinstalled drivers from the resource CD. Downloaded and installed all Windows updates. Installed Avira AntiVir instead of McAfee. Then installed the rest of my programs. Been smooth sailing since.

There is an exception, though. My computer has the common standby problem: when resuming from standby, brightness control doesn't work. I find this to be a very common and Vista-specific problem.

I know it's disheartening to expect something to be one way and find so many things that contradict what you were hoping for. But I hope you find some recourse using our tips and start to like your 1520 as much as a lot of us do.

-Brian

 

Yep try doing a fresh install of Vista....

 

Did you uncheck the PCMService in MSCONFIG/startup? This service caused major delay in typing reponse and is not essential at all.

 

I say reinstall vista.

Downlaod every update for vista. Also go to laptopvideo2go and download the latest nvidia drivers.

Also leave your computer on for an hour. The hdd thrashing will stop once vista has indexed everything.

I am running vista on a 1520 with the lowest processor 1 gig ram and the 8600gt and vista is really fast on it.

Make sure that you also set the vista power options to max eprformance. That is something that everybody overlooks.

 

Try getting newer video drivers from laptopvideo2go.com, they might run aero better which could help general lagginess.

 

I personally hate Vista. It has taken my desktop with 4GB of ram and turned it into a dog. I have seen the delay in typing and what not. There is a small trick that will greatly improve your performance. Buy a 2GB USB thumb drive is "Ready Boost" compatible. (All it means is that is has a fast enough read/write speed.) PLug it in and check off the check box that asks if you want to use it as a Ready Boost drive.

You should see an almost immediate improvement.

 

See my articles below. Start with the Clean install and finish with the tweaks Ive suggested. not only will it fix you problem, but also, it will solve any memory concerns (which is what is occurring) as well as speeding everything up.

 

What battery setting do you have it at? Do you have speedstep on? Are you using AC power or off the battery itself I've noticed if I'm just using the battery things get really slow still trying to find the right settings so it doesn't crawl when I'm on battery power.

 

Hey,

Well I've used a number of different 1520's, (everyone has one now..phfft...) and they all seem to run outstanding. Maybe as said, do a fresh install of Vista. Vista is hardcore on memory usage, 300 - 500 MB ideal, not exactly fun when you only got a GB of ram, half is gone just on the basic OS!

Make sure you do windows update, Microsoft has released some great patches that solve a lot performance issues, more just came out.

As for iTunes coverflow.. don't be disappointed. It runs like crap on every Windows machine that I've used. And one of the workstation machines here uses Quadro 4500's in SLI and has 8gb ram, 64bit OS and a quad core CPU and cover flow lags on it like mad! I think Apple have a prejedius (spelling?lol) towards Windows, although I've been in the Apple store and on those big fancy Mac pro's it still is laggy. Can't explain it..Crummy coding? It's alright with 30 albums but when you crawl up to 100, good luck with that.

- If on battery check you're power settings
- Maybe turn off speed-step, it's been known to ruin performance in some applications.

My input so far.

 

I too have faced some of those problems..and I too thought that by buying this laptop ..it would be one of the top laptops as reviews said at the time I bought it that is..that the 8600M GT is the best laptop graphic card to date..on paper my dell 1520's specs and the acer 5920G specs are the same for example..but then on benchmark the acer gets 3400+ while the dell struggles to get 2900...I don't c how the performance can vary quite that much...in 3d mark 06...only when I overclock the graphic card abit will it reach 3.4k..but the acer can reach 3.4k with ease and with default factory clock settings..im confused..

 

I think the problem you are having is with your video card drivers. Try installing the 163.69 driver HERE. Remember to download the modded INF file and then place it in the folder after you have extracted the driver, but BEFORE you try to install it. It will give you an error if you try to install the driver without putting the modded INF file in the folder.

 

iTunes is my only complaint with Vista. It's horrible. Glad I really only use it to sync up my iPod. To be fair, it's probably more of an Apple problem and not so much Vista's fault. But I disagree that Coverflow is slow on every Windows machine. My desktop at home is a 3 year old, self-built P4 3.2 with 1GB ram and an ATi x700 video card (AGP) running XP Pro. Using Coverflow in iTunes with the same collection of about 7,000 songs over several hundred albums is absolutely flawlessly smooth. I mean zero lag. Even when the albums are 'speeding up' and 'slowing down' as you flip through them, it's smooth as silk. It's a laggy mess on my clean-install, Vista Home Premium w/ 2.2 Core2Duo, 2GB RAM and 8600GT 1520. Barely usable.

 

Good idea on the video drivers. I loaded the latest drivers from that site last night. I didn't do any INF replacement. I just downloaded, extracted, and then choose to update the driver from the device manager via the manual 'Have disk' method. Easy enough to do, albeit with plenty of warnings from Windows that they may not be safe to use! Silly Vista...

I'm running the latest iTunes, and this driver did help. Not even close to fixing the problem, but it did speed it up a bit. When 'flowing' through covers with the Dell drivers, I'd get frequent stutters, perhaps once a second between chunky flows. Now, with these drivers, it stutters about once every 3 seconds between almost-as-chunkly flows.

I even rolled back the driver to the previous version & tested iTunes again to make sure it wasn't just in my head. It's not.

Better, but still not there yet....