Windows 8, my burden, my enemy (Dell)

To say I hate my quad core Dell XPS hotrod is an understatement. I can't even scroll through jpegs without crashes or some crazy COM Surrogate errors. It's no faster than my Dell w7, 3 years its senior.

It doesn't come with any software disk. I'm either going to shoot the computer, myself, or find a remedy.

I'm thinking to just do a clean fresh reinstall of everything, but I don't know how to do that.

What are my options? There are endless convoluted tech heavy MS websites for other sufferers, browsing them is like falling into a black hole.

I even get messages to update to w8.1 but when I try, somehow I end up with w8 and not upgrade. Thanks Bill! You got me again.

I was thinking of putting a craigslist ad offering 75 bucks to anyone that get this thing running right. I dunno. Please can someone at least hold my hand?
 
Is the problem Windows 8 or the computer in general? I don't think an operating system can cause a computer to be complete crap entirely on its own. Usually there's an issue beyond simply running Windows 8 vs 7 or whatnot.
 
It sounds more like an issue with the computer and Dell than Windows 8. When buying a new computer, always make sure you are getting a backup disk and operating system disk with the computer. Too many major computer manufacturers are not giving OS and backup disks with their computers these days to maximize their profit margin at their customers expense.
 
If you have a mom and pop computer store in your area, you would be better off having them building you a custom computer and getting an in store warranty with it. You will get a Windows 8 system disk from them and any software will come with original disks.

The "free upgrade to Windows 8.1" is over three Gigs in size and will take days to download with DSL service. Microsoft is just being too cheap to mail out DVDs of the step up to 8.1. There want to maximize their profit margin at the expense of pissing off customers.
 
If you were near me, I'd fix it for you. I can offer some guidance nonetheless. Stability is key..

You've got to clear the start up right away, and then I'd recommend using a simple usb flash drive or sd card as a 'Readyboost' drive (if you don't have an ssd os drive). Simply right click in My Computer and choose properties of the drive. Then choose to use the drive for Readyboost.

W/ these 1st two steps down, we can delve deeper down the rabbit hole to crush any other issues.
 
This doesn't sound like an OS problem to me. Personally, I like windows 8. Here's how I would trouble-shoot it.

#1 Don't undervalue a good video card. What are you using and what are the specs on it? That will have great importance on something like video editing.

In fact, what are all the specs on the computer?

#2 Go to this site https://ninite.com/ and download updates for all programs, runtimes, and for your OS and update everything.

#3 Did you remove all the bloatware that came with it? What antivirus are you using? These things can seriously impair your computer's performance.

I'm thinking to just do a clean fresh reinstall of everything, but I don't know how to do that.

Here's a yahoo answer I found on how to do a complete factory reset on a Dell with Windows 8 https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20131012165132AAf2quo

Since this is a newer computer it should definitely be under warranty and if the problems are as serious as you say (crashing from loading a jpeg) that should definitely fall under it. Take it to where you bought it and have it looked at.

It sounds more like an issue with the computer and Dell than Windows 8. When buying a new computer, always make sure you are getting a backup disk and operating system disk with the computer. Too many major computer manufacturers are not giving OS and backup disks with their computers these days to maximize their profit margin at their customers expense.

That's because you no longer need a disk to do a restore or factory reset.
 
To say I hate ...<snip>
It doesn't come with any software disk. I'm either going to shoot the computer, myself, or find a remedy.

The remedy is called a Macintosh. I'm serious— while I realize it's a chunk of change to switch over, and I use both due to my regular job, I wouldn't personally own a windows machine if it were free. My time and stress level thank me every time I turn on my Macbook Pro...

To each his own, but that's my 2 cents—
 
The computer can have a bad memory chip or EPROM chip as well. But, that is for a technician to determine. Bad memory chips don't always have hard failures where the motherboard will declare a memory chip is bad. When the computer tries to write or access data in a bad sector, the computer can act like it has a hardware conflict.

If the OS reinstall does not work, I suggest you contact Dell Tech Support for help. New computers are usually covered for a year of tech support.
 
The remedy is called a Macintosh. I'm serious— while I realize it's a chunk of change to switch over, and I use both due to my regular job, I wouldn't personally own a windows machine if it were free. My time and stress level thank me every time I turn on my Macbook Pro...

To each his own, but that's my 2 cents—

Apple has no secret sauce - I've an '13 Air and I love it, but -

The PC I built at home is simply the most powerful and crash free computer I've used, significantly outpacing the expensive Mac tower I use at work in both power and reliability.
 
The remedy is called a Macintosh. I'm serious— while I realize it's a chunk of change to switch over, and I use both due to my regular job, I wouldn't personally own a windows machine if it were free. My time and stress level thank me every time I turn on my Macbook Pro...

To each his own, but that's my 2 cents—

I've had to re-init the hard drive on my Mac 6500 and re-install the OS to fix corrupt software issues. In the field, I have had to re-init hard drives, re-install OS, preferences, and settings on numerous Mac print servers. You haven't seen enough Macs to know they have corrupt software issues just like PCs.
 
The reason why Macs have less conflict problems than PCs is because PCs have a much wider range of hardware manufacturers with more hardware configurations than Macs. Windows does not have a percentage of the right or most up to date drivers for what's in computers all the time. A computer manufacturer's version of Windows is better than Microsoft's for this reason.

I don't recommend upgrading or stepping up to newer versions of Windows because of this. Microsoft's version of Windows is written for too many manufacturers to be bug free.

The store that built my Windows 8 computer put all brand name parts in my computer that had Windows drivers.

A friend who bought a Dell computer last year at work told me he got no disks, OS backup on a ROM chip or secondary hard drive. He is directed to go cloud support.

That's all well and good, until the hard drive crashes and the computer can't boot up to go on the Internet.


My Sony Vaio I bought in 2010 came with no backup for Windows Vista. When the computer crashed, I had to buy a full version of Windows Vista to get it to a state where it could get on the Internet to get to Sony's web site to download all of its hardware drivers.
 
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The remedy is called a Macintosh. I'm serious— while I realize it's a chunk of change to switch over, and I use both due to my regular job, I wouldn't personally own a windows machine if it were free. My time and stress level thank me every time I turn on my Macbook Pro...

To each his own, but that's my 2 cents—

This is a such a straw man argument. 99% of 'PC Problems' are end user related issues.
 
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