I've had my Dell Dimension 4600 for over three years. It's been through a number of traumtic experiences. For general history I've reformatted a few times, got a new hard drive 1 year ago with just one reformat on it, added more RAM to get me up to 2 GB, replaced the video card, and replaced the sound card.

Now my PC is getting dangerously slow. It takes too long to do even the most basic tasks like opening Firefox. zB, when I load Starcraft into the DVD-ROM drive, it takes it about a minute to open the auto play screen, and will play the little audio clip 30 seconds before that, with no auto play menu. That could be a matter of the DVD-ROM drive being past it's time. However, it's not the main culprit, and I'm wondering if I should replace the processor. I haven't replaced anything else like the cooling fan or the power supply.

I'm certainly interested getting my hands dirty working on the machine, though I'm not really interested in spending more than it would cost to buy a mini-mac. I'm not buying another PC.

Thanks for your comments!

Have you run Virus & Spyware scans recently? Do So.

Look at running processes in the Task Manager CTRL/ALT/DEL and see if something is using a lot of resources.

CPU's won't "slow Down" because they are old - they will fail completely or work AOK {unless the processor is overheating, THEN it will slow down}.

A defrag wouldn't hurt either.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I've had up to date anti-spyware and anti-virus for a long time, and I do defrag and all that jazz, but it's good to know its not the processor. Is there a way to open the computer up and do testing on the circuitry with a volt meter? Is there a way to test if I have some bad capacitors or something? I'm no expert at electronics, but I do know how to trouble shoot. Bottom line, the Dell runs worse after a reformat (and yes, I know to reinstall the chip set drivers first) today than it did when it was new. It's fun to just stand around a say that it's a piece of crap, but I'd like to actually know why its a piece of crap.

There's always a way but someone with exceptional skill and knowledge would need to do something like that. Such work couldn't be explained easily, even by an "ace'. For this kind of knowledge I say go to school, and when you become able, get the repair manual for the unit that you want to test. Good Luck.

sounds like a virus to me, but use spybot search and destroy, not norton antivirus