What follows looks like a lot to do but it sounds like things are a little ridiculous for you right now. It is mostly copy/paste for me (I don't do much actual typing if I can help it). Jut read through it all first so you can see what is going on...
If your Dell has a Service Tag number, let's have it so we can look up some things easier on the Dell site.
Your Dell Service Tag: ___________________
When you can, do this:
Download, install, update and do a
quick scan with this free malware detection program:
Malwarebytes (MBAM): http://malwarebytes.org/
Since you are using IDE drives, use Device Manager to verify the transfer mode of the IDE channels is set to something like DMA if available (depends on your hardware) and not the slower PIO mode.
PIO is the slowest, DMA is the fastest.
This is easy to check and generally easy to fix and the mode would not have changed by itself, so if it has changed to PIO, change it to DMA and then figure out why it changed and fix it.
To launch the Device Manger console, click Start, Run and in the box enter:
%SystemRoot%\system32\devmgmt.msc
Click OK.
Expand the IDE/ATA controller section to see your IDE channels. Right click each, choose Properties, and for each channel that has an Advanced Settings tab, determine the Transfer Mode. There are usually 4 channels to check in a desktop, maybe fewer for laptops.
The fastest selection will be some kind of DMA selection (usually: DMA DMA5, UDMA, etc.). If it is PIO, change it to DMA.
If you are not sure about what you see post back for help and advice.
Follow this up with a reboot to make sure any changes stick.
What may have caused the change?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472
If you want faster Internet browsing, give Firefox a look. Most folks like it better than IE, it is faster and there is nothing wrong with having multiple browsers on your system - I have 4 installed right now and never use IE except when MS makes me. Just
use IE when Microsoft makes you use it (like for updates, etc.).
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
When you can, lets get the msinfo32 info in it's entirety if possible so we can see for sure what your video situation is (NVIDIA or not).
Click Start, Run and in the box enter:
msinfo32
Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select All (Ctrl-A), Copy (Ctrl-C) and then paste (Ctrl-V) the information back here.
For video driver information, expand the Components, click Display, click Edit, Select All, Copy and then paste the information back here.
There will be some personal information (like System Name and User Name), and whatever appears to be private information to you, just delete it from the pasted information.
I can say that if you have your AVG installed "out of the box" or if it still thinks it is at the work environment (or something silly like that), it will sure slow you down. There are other AV options out there that are less burdensome.
You may see if you can disable AVG temporarily to see how things look, or just uninstall it all completely, reboot, test performance and reinstall it again or, just replace it with something that is less burdensome - Microsoft Security Essentials is not too
bad:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials
If you choose to reinstall AVG, here are some notes I have (but I have not installed AVG in a while so this could have changed):
Find your AV uninstaller here and be sure to use it.
DO NOT use Add/Remove Programs to uninstall AVG - AVG has their own special uninstaller.
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/comprehensive-list-of-uninstallers-or-removal-tools-for-antivirus-software/#more-2878
If you are compelled to keep using AVG, then do a fresh install of AVG with their latest version.
This time, do not install AVG with "all the options" enabled since it will add more overhead than most people need. Of course that is up to you and your Internet habits, but generally speaking, the more protections you have installed, the slower your system
is going to run.
You can read about these AVG components first to see if you think you really need them
in your environment or not.
When you install AVG this time, select the CUSTOM install option and do NOT install (uncheck) the following:
E-mail Scanner
Personal E-mail Scanner
Microsoft Outlook add-in
LinkScanner
AVG Search Shield
AVG Surf Shield
Firewall
Identity Protection
Online Shield
Security Toolbar
Linkscanner
Search-Shield
Active Surf-Shield
Smart Scanning
Security toolbar
Any of the email scanning components
If you wonder why you don't need your antivirus to scan your email, read this article:
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/email-scanning/index.htm
(Thanks, PA Bear.)
I am busy until early next week, but go ahead and post your info back and somebody else can jump in and help (hopefully). I don't "own" this thread - this is a community forum!