Dell Vostro 1500 SLOW when running on battery...

oh well if you dont have the cd from dell you can have them next day it for free to you just call them up

 

Try going into Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options and select the performance level. See if this helps any.

 

It just takes me to the BIOS when I press F2...

Its definitely the difference between AC power and battery that is causing this to happen. Everything is fine and normal on AC power, boot up time is great and performance is fine.

But when its running off the battery EVERYTHING is slow and totally unusable...

 

That was one of the first things I tried -- no change at all... the performance is simply not there running from the battery.

 

Okay, here's an example. I started the computer in battery mode... Took about 3 minutes and then I was just waiting at the black screen like normal. So I plugged in the AC adapter and it took about 20 seconds after that to boot up.

Then, once everything loaded, I changed the power setting to keep everything at 100% even on the battery. Then, I unplugged the AC adapter, and loaded IE.

I stopped counting the load time after 30 seconds of it just sitting there. It just now finally loaded, but I can't type anything into the address bar or Google because its too slow.... So you see this is definitely not normal...

 

Ya def try a reinstall and if that doesn't work call Dell and get a new system!

 

ya dell is very easy to haggle with just call them and be nice but FORCEFUL! jkjk they'll give it to you free, it is their fault

 

trevelyan - did you ever get a resolution to this issue? I have the same problem on a Dell Insp 1100. let me know.
thanks,
-paul