I am trying to fix a laptop that is having a few problems. This is a Dell Inspiron 8500 from 2003. One 80 gig HD and a DVD/CD-rw drive. I have fixed some of the problems , but for some reason, whenever you click the "My Computer" icon, it sits there for about 2 mins before is shows the pc's drives.(You know, the damn Flashlight that goes back and forth). Anything to do with "My Computer" freezes up. Example, when you go to "Save as" on the web or any other app, it freezes. Also, upon startup after the sign in screen it sits for at least a minute. This leads my to believe there is something wrong with the drives being recognized and probably a process running in the background, but what ? I ran the program "Process Explorer" to see what was going on, and besides Messenger, there isn't anything that is running that would cause a problem. I disabled messenger but there is still a hang up. Figured what the hell, might as well rename it in safe mode to disable it since the owner doesn't use it.



This thing has been sent in already for a motherboard replacment, as most Dell's have problems that were built around 2003. Supposedly there was a very large batch of defective Laptops from that time. I know 4 people who had to send them back.

Any help is appreciated.