Inspiron 600m Sluggish

[sprtnbsblplya]

I have an Inspiron 600m with the 1.6 ghz 2MB cache Pentium M, 512 MB (256x2) PC2700 DDR RAM, 5400 rpm 40 gig hard drive, and 64 MB ATI Radeon 9000.
When I try to play older games such as Morrowind, Command and Conquer Generals, stuff like that, the system is sluggish, it will play the game smoothly for about 3 or 4 seconds, then pause for a moment (the hard drive light flashes sometimes), then go back to the game smoothly for another 3 or 4 seconds, repeating itself.
I dont understand why this laptop with good hardware is acting so sluggish at old software.
Any suggestions?

The service tech came out and replaced my motherboard already, and it still does the same thing.
Also, I am aware that a Radeon 9000 isnt the most wicked card out there and that 512 RAM isnt an insane amount, but c'mon, even this system can run Morrowind (well, should run well).

I had a Gateway 1.7 Ghz Centrino of yesteryear (1 MB cache model), with 512 RAM, and 32 MB Radeon 7500, and it played Morrowind like a dream, why should this brand new Dell do it slower?

 

[Trotter]

Here's a quote of a post I made to a different problem that should apply here as well.

OK. Here's a solution for you.

First-
MSCONFIG (when used with the RUN command) opens up the System Configuration Utility. Most of the stuff in there you don't want to mess with unless you know what you are doing or have detailed instructions.

Click the STARTUP tab. The list that it pulls up is everything that you can choose to start up when Windows does.

Why is all of this stuff in the list? Because every program designer thinks his 'creation' is so indispensible that no one could possibly want it to NOT start up with their computer (yeah, right), so they set it into the list and have it to do just that.


Once you're at the list, look it over and see what all has a check mark. Every program that does starts up when Windows loads... EVERYTIME!

If something is checked, but you don't know what it is, Google it and find out.

Once you have seen what is there, uncheck everything that you don't need or want. Keep your firewall, antivirus, broadband drivers, graphics drivers, whatever you absolutely have to have, but uncheck everythign else.

Once you are done, click APPLY, OK, then reboot.

When your computer starts up, you'll get a grey box about the System Configuration Utility. Check the box about 'Don't run on startup' then OK.

If you had a lot of stuff checked, then your comp ought to start up faster and run more stable.

Second-
Download and run AdAware, Spybot, and possibly Microsoft AntiSpyware.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Ad-Aware_...sonal_d506.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/SpyBot-Se...troy_d2471.html
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en
(All are free. Be sure to have each one update itself before you scan.)

Third-
Uninstall any unused or unnedded programs you have on your hard drive.

Fourth-
Download and run TweakNow to clean up your computer's registry.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/TweakNow_...aner_d4134.html

Fifth-
Run Disk Defragmenter START- ALL PROGRAMS- ACCESSORIES- SYSTEM TOOLS- DISK DEFRAGMENTER).

Reboot your computer and see if it cranks up a bit faster, plus it ought to have a lot more zip to it as well.

Also, be sure that you've downloaded the latest drivers for your graphics card.

 

[sprtnbsblplya]

I know that my system doesnt have any spyware on it at all, also, already tried the defragging approach.
I also have the programs running in the background cleaned up, I know that this is not really a program thing.
I have an Athlon XP 2500+ based desktop with 512 ram also that has a heck of a lot more stuff running in the background and it is way faster.

I'm pretty good with setting up software and all that good stuff, so I'm left wondering if this is a hardware problem.
I just ran MemTest86+ and the memory came out fine, no problems, any other ideas?
I'm thinking that it might be the hard drive.