[hellssaints]

Dell Vostro Laptop w/ Win XP SP2

Symptoms:

- USB hardware such as wireless modem and mouse not being acknowledged
- System occasionally running extra slow for a minute or two at a time
- in task manager, "system idle process" is taking up a lot of CPU, 93-97%
- Sound occasionally doesn't work.

I attempted to fix the problem by completely wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows, but the problem remained.

[flavallee]

It's normal for "System Idle Process" to be in the high 90's.

There can be several reasons why your computer is running slow.

If you format a hard drive and do a fresh install of XP, you need to confirm afterwards that the drivers got installed for all of the devices. Are there any X's or question marks( ? ) or exclamation marks( ! ) in the Device Manager?

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This should've been posted in the "Windows NT/2000/XP" section and not in the "General Security" section.

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[hellssaints]

I made sure to install all the correct drivers for things such as the sound card and wifi card from the disc that was included with my laptop, but its the plug&play things like my modem, mouse, and MIDI interface that have the question marks in the device manager. When i connect the plug&play devices, windows doesnt acknowledge that they're there, much less install the approprate driver automatically like has done for me in the past.

[ablaye]

Have you tried going to Dell website and see if there is a BIOS upgrade?
You could manually install the drivers for the plug-and-play devices.

[hellssaints]

i tried the BIOS upgrade, and it hasn't appeared to have worked.