Michael K.
22 Mar 2005, 06:10 PM
I've got two issues with my computer - a relatively bottom of the line Dell desktop that I bought about a year and a half ago (I'm a grad student, thus a real baller on a budget). I try and keep it clean with all the antispyware, firewalls and antivirus programs everyone else uses here - AVG, Spybot, AdAware, ZoneAlarm, etc. I also use Firefox almost exclusively. While this whole setup is more or less sufficient for what I use it for, I'm dealing with two things that are affecting my computer's performance.
#1: How come, for the last couple weeks, Bigsoccer has been loading diabolically slow for me? Not just the front page, not just once, but every page, every time. I don't know if it's somehow a result of my doing the "speed up Firefox trick", or else something is going on with my firewall. And I know there were massive slowness issues going on with BS over the past couple weeks, but I don't think that's my problem here - I'm writing this on my work computer, which loads BS up perfectly fine. I get half the page, and the status bar at the bottom says that it's contacting "rightmedia.net" - which I guess serves BS's advertising - and then it hangs there. It's gotten to the point where I can't use this site very much at home - I can't wait a minute for every page to load. The strange thing is, it doesn't happen to me with any other sites.
#2: How the hell do you crack a Dell open? Every other computer I've owned could be opened up relatively easily - undo a few screws, lift off the top, and you're in there. But it seems like my Dell is held together with screws AND rivets, and I'm loathe to just pop them off. Did they design these things so only a tech can get inside? I'd like to be able to open it up, not only in the case of adding some memory or whatever, but also because, with my old computers, I'd open them up every now and then to blow the accumulated dust off with a few well-aimed blasts from a CO2 can, and it always seemed to make the thing run a little better. But I can't do that now.
#1: How come, for the last couple weeks, Bigsoccer has been loading diabolically slow for me? Not just the front page, not just once, but every page, every time. I don't know if it's somehow a result of my doing the "speed up Firefox trick", or else something is going on with my firewall. And I know there were massive slowness issues going on with BS over the past couple weeks, but I don't think that's my problem here - I'm writing this on my work computer, which loads BS up perfectly fine. I get half the page, and the status bar at the bottom says that it's contacting "rightmedia.net" - which I guess serves BS's advertising - and then it hangs there. It's gotten to the point where I can't use this site very much at home - I can't wait a minute for every page to load. The strange thing is, it doesn't happen to me with any other sites.
#2: How the hell do you crack a Dell open? Every other computer I've owned could be opened up relatively easily - undo a few screws, lift off the top, and you're in there. But it seems like my Dell is held together with screws AND rivets, and I'm loathe to just pop them off. Did they design these things so only a tech can get inside? I'd like to be able to open it up, not only in the case of adding some memory or whatever, but also because, with my old computers, I'd open them up every now and then to blow the accumulated dust off with a few well-aimed blasts from a CO2 can, and it always seemed to make the thing run a little better. But I can't do that now.