When was the last time the hard drive was replaced? I say this only in relation to wondering when the last time your current hard drive was formatted and you had fresh install of Windows. If it was years ago and you've installed and/or downloaded a lot of software etc since then, it can become sluggish if not maintained.

UPDATE: Emailed a formal complaint to Dell through the complaints form on their website. It said I would receive a response within 24 hours. This was 3 days ago now and I have yet to receive anything. They really could not care less. Next time I buy a laptop I will try to research other companies and their after sales support / customer service. This is not the first nightmare experience I've had with Dell but it will certainly be the last.

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I realised this and wasn't initally prepared to pay £145. It's an XPS with a slot loaded drive. I tried getting to it but I couldn't. Had a look on eBay and the same drives were ~£60. For the sake of finding an independant and other messing about I thought I'd just have Dell come out and do it. He had to obliterate the laptop to get to the drive. Obviously no idea I was going to have such a painful experience as this.

Called Dell re a faulty DVD drive. Was out of warranty so paid £145 (after not being able to get to the slot loaded DVD drive on my XPS and seeing they were ~£60 on eBay) to have the drive replaced. Was told I'd receive a phone call from the engineer on the day of the fix. Didn't receive a call so chased them up to be told he was coming and I'd receive a call in the next 30 mins, again reconfirmed my telephone number. No call, so called again 1 hour later. Was again told he was still coming before 5 pm, again reconfirmed my telephone number. Still no call or engineer by 4.30pm. I called for the 3rd time to see what was happening and was told he could not contact me because they had the wrong telephone number on file. Something I'd given when I initially made the order and twice the same day of the expected service. It was then a holiday weekend so he could not come for another 4 days. I asked for compensation which was refused so I requested a full refund on the service. After about 4 days I checked my bank statement to see that the refund had not been issued. Rather than mess about I then decided I'd just go ahead with rebooking the service as I needed the laptop fixed. He came, took my laptop to bits and refitted the DVD drive. After putting it back together 5 of the keys (a strip) on the keypad were not working. He told me that he'd order one and come and fit it (after another holiday weekend) the following Tuesday, today, 3rd May. He said he'd call me on the day to let me know when he'd be here. Waited until after 1pm before calling Dell to make sure he was still coming. I was then rudely told that the refund had been processed and I had effectively not paid for the original service (I obviously had no idea of this but was spoken to as if it was my fault and I owed them money (zero apology or admittance of their error, I was beside myself with annoyance and amazement) - they'd also waited for me to call them to see where this guy was, no communications in the meantime regarding the issue). She then literally threatened that they would not replace my keypad until I paid for the service, as if I didn't "I would never be able to use Dell's services again." This is what she actually said to me. Given how bad my experience had already been I was not very happy to say the least. Who do these people at Dell customer services think they are? She was not the first abrasive person I'd dealt with in this time either. When I started to try to explain to her how unreasonable they had been, she got extremely dismissive of the issue and started to abruptly communicate the end of the call as if she'd explained the terms she was offering and that was it, concluded. Several hours later I received a call from another Dell representitive. She had called me to say exactly the same thing, "Mr *, I understand you have a faulty keypad that you require to be replaced. You must pay £145 for the original service. If you do not do this then we will block your service tag and you will not be allowed to use Dell's services again. We obviously don't want to do this so please let us have your payment..." I am absolutely disgusted at this to say the least. Am I also supposed to be grateful that I should be able to use Dell's customer services? This isn't the first bad experience I've had with Dell's customer service. Will buy elsewhere next time.