Dell Inspiron 1545 (XP) Model # PP41L
Sorry, I see a ref number but not a revision number...

Okay, so my laptop is a little over a year old. A couple months ago it started being really slow, especially at startup. I would have to open another program to force it to acknowledge I opened the internet. Then one day it only loaded a couple startup programs, and it would not let me click anything. I had to turn it off improperly. It became steadily worse until it wouldn't load any programs, just the desktop (it started up normally otherwise).

Dell (some man in India, anyway) asked me if I downloaded anything recently. There was nothing I could recall. He said it was a major corruption, and though we were under warranty, it didn't cover this. We tried going back (reverting to the last safe point) to no avail. In the end we asked someone at my dad's work what to do because we didn't want to pay. He told us to reinstall xp, which has worked, until last week.

Then last week it started doing the same thing, and I still don't know why. Today I finally reinstalled xp, but I am not sure if it's something I am doing that is causing this or if there is an underlying issue that will keep cropping up until it is resolved. Any input would be helpful. I'm not very computer savvy.

Thanks.

My usual strategy for situations like this is to first verify the hardware particularly the hard drive and memory with the manufacturer's diagnostic or a similar utility. Once the hardware is known to be good, then software causes, such as malware, can be investigated.

After you reinstalled XP, did you run Windows Update until no more High Priority updates remained? Fresh XP installs that remain unpatched can be considered a sitting duck for malware infestation if the Internet is accessed. This probably wasn't your original problem, but it is easy to inadvertently make a machine less secure while trying to resolve a problem.

I think I remember seeing something about diagnostic(s) when I was F3/F12ing my computer in startup. I could probably figure out how to do that when I get a minute.

I remember the little bubble popping up about updates. I haven't seen it since. I don't think I stopped it... I downloaded antivirus software almost immediately and updated it, if that matters.


When this happened last time I had it scan all the drives somewhere in startup. There was an error code I wrote down in the main drive, but I have no idea where that is anymore. Also, when it's messing up it recovers orphaned files, dumps the physical memory, and generally freaks out. It also shuts down to prevent further damage because it encountered a problem. If that's helpful.

... I had it scan all the drives somewhere in startup. There was an error code...

Figure out who manufactured the laptop's hard drive and go to their website and download and run their diagnostic utility. The service tag number on the laptop can be entered at Dell's website to get a listing of the laptop components as shipped.

The memory dump is a result of a Windows blue screen error (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death). These errors have numerous causes but common ones are bad hardware, flaky drivers, or corrupted files. Check the Event Viewer in the Control Panel's Administrative Tools for any logged errors which may yield a clue to identify a problem device.