Windows 11 and an incredibly slow, new Dell desktop

Fishmill said:

Do you keep your personal files (pictures, music) somewhere under the C:\Users directory?

I don't, but most people do and that is the default as far as I know.

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I don't know; how would I find that out? All the photos are in 2 or 3 different folders (with dozens of subfolders) I created on the desktop, but other than that I don't know what system folder they are in.

And if every time I start up the computer after being powered off for a couple of weeks, would it be re-indexing those same 63k files all over again; is that what's holding things up?

I've been turning indexing off since the XP days, both for HDDs and for SSDs. Never had a need for it other than it slows things down.

And don't forget to turn off that Dell crapware I mentioned earlier. I sped up my machine noticeably by turning some of that junk off.

What others here have said is good, too.

Fishmill said:

If you right click your C drive and choose "properties", do you then see a checkbox at the bottom that begins with "allow files"............?

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I'm sorry, but where do I find the C drive? Is there supposed to be a link to it on the desktop? I don't see it under Settings either.

Can you find a "search box" where you can enter a term?

Probably near the bottom of your screen. Just an open white box where you could type something.

If you do have such a box, type in "file explorer" and then poke any link to file explorer that comes up on your screen. That should lead you to the C drive...where everything lives, including your pictures and Windows.

CMB62 said:

I don't know; how would I find that out? All the photos are in 2 or 3 different folders (with dozens of subfolders) I created on the desktop, but other than that I don't know what system folder they are in.

And if every time I start up the computer after being powered off for a couple of weeks, would it be re-indexing those same 63k files all over again; is that what's holding things up?

Click to expand...

No--once a file is indexed, it should not have to be re-indexed. Should be once and done.

We can't know where your files are. You apparently created the folders in which they reside.

There is a path to those files. We don't know the path.

Here is a sample path:

C:\Users\CMB\kitty\sleeping\56.jpg

Where file name 56.jpg is presumably a sleeping cat. But it could be a pork chop, depending on your sense of organization.

Where "CMB" is your "user name". But your user name could be jackinthebox or anything you chose it to be.

But....you can save personal files anywhere. Somewhere under C Users as above would be the default.

OK, yes, I found it under OS (C:) Properties; there is a box that says "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties" and the box is checked. Do I uncheck it?

It would sure help if you could copy text from these system windows using the mouse, rather than having to re-type everything.

Thanks.

Fishmill said:

Here is a sample path:

C:\Users\CMB\kitty\sleeping\56.jpg

But....you can save personal files anywhere. Somewhere under C Users as above would be the default.

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OK, yes, it seems the files would all be in "This PC/OS (C:)/Users/(my name)/Desktop," and then in all the folders I created on the desktop. Which for photos alone amounts to five main folders on the desktop, containing a total of about 250 subfolders, which together contain thousands of photos. I guess I keep too many photos.

The box is checked indicating that your files are now indexed and will continue to be indexed.

Since indexing is allegedly already "done", there's no real reason to uncheck it. If you unchecked it, it might take an hour or so to "un-index" everything, which would be OK too. You have bigger problems to worry about right now.

If you were starting from scratch, yeah I would uncheck it. But it's a personal choice. Indexing does me NO good.

CMB62 said:

OK, yes, it seems the files would all be in "This PC/OS (C:)/Users/(my name)/Desktop," and then in all the folders I created on the desktop. Which for photos alone amounts to five main folders on the desktop, containing a total of about 250 subfolders, which together contain thousands of photos. I guess I keep too many photos.

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That's standard, normal, and OK. Do what appeals to your sense of organization.

It's good that you got to "File Explorer" and can view your entire folder trees with all the sub-folders. Most people create folders directly from File Explorer rather than from the desktop.

There's no need to have any folders visible on your desk top. It's optional.

Understand that if you had another hard drive named D, you could save files on it instead. Or copy files from C to D with the mouse.

When you look at File Explorer, do you see ANY indication of any drive letter other than C??

Typically D, but could be E, F, G, etc.

If you do not, you presumably have only 1 drive...a quite slow spinning drive.

Slow, but not slow enough to by itself cause the problems you seem to have. Something else is going on.

Easily replaceable by Microcenter if desired. Or just add an SSD and keep the slow drive also for extra storage.

As for hardware, 8GB RAM is sufficient. An i3 processor is sufficient as long as your background processes are trimmed down. The unknown is your hard drive. Unless you specified, I really doubt Dell put in a 1TB solid state drive. I'm guessing they cheaped out and snuck in a 5200 RPM 3.5" mechanical drive hoping you wouldn't notice the spec. After all, 1TB is awesome right? Not at 5200 RPM it isnt.

Here's what happens. Del has all kinds of their own proprietary software spinning around dragging down that Intel i3. If its a mechanical 5200 RPM, the drive begins fragmenting from the moment you start it. Copying personal data fills in the holes caused by fragmenting further slowing data retrieval when Windows and other programs run.

Any of my customers... I would physically intervene with a broomstick if they were considering buying a computer with a mechanical drive - even one running at 7200 RPM. They suck so bad that I wouldn't even let my wife's boyfriend buy one.

Here's how to know what drive you have:

1. Click search on the task bar.
2. Type: Device
3. You will see a result at the top that says Device Manager.
4. Click that to open the Device Manager window.
5. Open Disk Drives.
6. Write down the part number and a Google search will reveal what Dell put in your machine.

If it's a mechanical drive, you are pretty much stuck with that as your bottle-neck unless a tech you trust can replace it with a solid state drive and do a clean install of Windows 11. I hope your area has better experience and knowledge because I know of no one around here that knows what I know.

So with the amount of storage you described using, you are going to at least need a 500 GB SSD and these days, a 500GB MVMe runs about $100 and a 1TB about $150 currently.

Let's see what drive you have.

The Dell Precision in my specs WAS the most atrocious case of factory bloat I've seen to date. Plenty of solutions for that to be found in these forums, depending on how far down the rabbit hole you're willing to go.

OK, here goes:

1. There is just the single letter C: in File Explorer, so only I guess only one drive.

2. The properties say it's a Western Digital WD10EZEX-75WN4A1 - 1TB 7.2K RPM.

3. So it does appear to be 1 TB, but the 7200 rpm means it is mechanical and not solid state, am I right about that?

Is that alone the reason this thing is so slow, is that some antiquated feature? (But my 10-year-old cheap-ass ASUS laptop I use for my business must have much older components, and it's plenty fast without any of the problems of the desktop).

​

And thanks for the detailed instructions. I wouldn't mind at all dropping $150 on a solid-state 1TB drive, but if it means re-installing all of my files, iTunes, song files, re-installing programs, etc... ugh. That would take me weeks, plus I'd have to find someone to install the new drive, because I certainly wouldn't want to open up the metal box.

But again, do you think that alone is the main reason for this problem, or is it file structure or Defender running amok?

I believe the mechanical drive is a major part of it. AND all the Dell-branded software the put on their machines. A new SSD drive and a clean install of 11 will make it snappy.

Fishmill said:

There's no need to have any folders visible on your desk top. It's optional.

Click to expand...

But then how do you find things on your computer? What is the point of a blank screen? I don't get why anyone would want that if the point is to be able to see your filing system.

I keep many things on my Desktop that I need at a second's notice but I generally advise people to use the aptly named data folders to organize personal data (eg Documents, Pictures, Music). Use File Explorer to access those directories and you can also customize the Start Menu to have shortcuts appear at the bottom of the Start Menu.

CMB62 said:

OK, here goes:

1. There is just the single letter C: in File Explorer, so only I guess only one drive.

2. The properties say it's a Western Digital WD10EZEX-75WN4A1 - 1TB 7.2K RPM.

3. So it does appear to be 1 TB, but the 7200 rpm means it is mechanical and not solid state, am I right about that?

Is that alone the reason this thing is so slow, is that some antiquated feature? (But my 10-year-old cheap-ass ASUS laptop I use for my business must have much older components, and it's plenty fast without any of the problems of the desktop).

​

Click to expand...

Yes, you are right about that.

As far as we know, it is functioning properly.

Normally, from a completely off state, I'd expect a PC like yours to have Windows fully loaded and ready to go within a minute or two.

If the drive were instead an SSD, that might be reduced to 30 seconds.

You don't seem to be doing anything with the PC that is strenuous or requires much CPU power.

For most operations, you'd never notice the difference between your 7200 rpm drive and an SSD. It would be noticeable on stuff like starting up, virus scans, copying a huge bunch of MP3s, opening a big application like Photoshop, backing up 100,000 files, etc.

But not for standard stuff like looking at this forum, creating a folder, or watching Youtube.

No doubt Dell installs a bunch of stuff you don't need and will never use by default. That might contribute. Some of that stuff may run every time you start up....unnecessarily.

You may have some drive fragmentation, but that is rarely a severe problem. It is fixable.

Normally, we'd probably tell you to do a clean Windows install, but you don't know how and it's too much to realistically expect of you.

I'd take it to Micro Center, but first I'd decide on a general plan:

1; is budget a concern? Will you spend 50, 250, or 500?

2; in all likelihood, a clean install would help and Micro Center can do that. Guessing 150 or 200 for that alone, re-using the existing drive?? Total guess.

3; new SSD and keep the existing 7200 drive also is possible; that might cost an additional 150 or 200.

Might be 400 or 500 total. Do you balk at that?

At a bare minimum, I'd add an SSD and get a clean install without all the Dell crap.

I'd back up all my personal files before taking it to Micro Center.

Another possibility is to continue this or another thread and try to walk you through fixing it yourself. From your comments, that is a NON-STARTER and understandably so. I tend to agree with you, given your reluctance.

CMB62 said:

But then how do you find things on your computer? What is the point of a blank screen? I don't get why anyone would want that if the point is to be able to see your filing system.

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I can see my file system in 2 seconds by clicking a single icon on the task bar. That pops open my folder tree. I have 3 separate drives and thousands of folders.

No room for thousands of folders on my desktop.

But I do have a few icons on my desktop and a few more on my taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Probably 20 total. Out of thousands. My icons are mostly to start applications rather than to provide access to folders.

I operated for years with only 1 visible icon on the desktop: Recycle Bin.

Fishmill said:

As far as we know, it is functioning properly.
Normally, from a completely off state, I'd expect a PC like yours to have Windows fully loaded and ready to go within a minute or two.
You don't seem to be doing anything with the PC that is strenuous or requires much CPU power.

Normally, we'd probably tell you to do a clean Windows install, but you don't know how and it's too much to realistically expect of you.

I'd take it to Micro Center, but first I'd decide on a general plan:

1; is budget a concern? Will you spend 50, 250, or 500?
2; in all likelihood, a clean install would help and Micro Center can do that. Guessing 150 or 200 for that alone, re-using the existing drive?? Total guess.
3; new SSD and keep the existing 7200 drive also is possible; that might cost an additional 150 or 200.

At a bare minimum, I'd add an SSD and get a clean install without all the Dell crap.
I'd back up all my personal files before taking it to Micro Center.

Another possibility is to continue this or another thread and try to walk you through fixing it yourself. From your comments, that is a NON-STARTER and understandably so. I tend to agree with you, given your reluctance.

Click to expand...

Thanks. As the saying goes, money is no object - what I have now is practically unusable and causes me far too much stress. It faffs me off that Dell might have sold me something that won't even meet my extremely basic requirements, but I really don't think that hard drive is the problem; it must be something else going on with Windows 11, or the presence of an ancient, unsupported program like iTunes (I think Apple wants to get rid of it and force everyone to pay them $20/month for Apple Music).

Maybe the only way to find out is to take the thing to MicroCenter, have them install a 1TB SSD, and reinstall all of my crap from an external hard drive, as you suggest. Would you trust them to do a decent job with that? And maybe replace my Desktop folder system with shortcuts to the Documents folder, if that makes the whole thing work better?

You are 100% correct that I cannot fix this myself - the time I've spent on this last night and today alone is more time than I ever want to spend trying to fix a computer.

But I very much appreciate all of YOUR time and the others on this board who helped. THANKS!

Now I'm out of here to find that MicroCenter.