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December 15th, 2024 22:08
Inspiron 5559 - Incredibly slow, even with SSD and 16GB
A friend of mine brought over his Inspiron 5559, as it was crawling and was basically unusable. When he told me it took 6-8 minutes to get to Windows, I assumed it was because he still had a HDD, as opposed to an SSD. Turns out, there was an SSD installed
The laptop has an i5-6200, 16GB, and a 512GB SSD.
He didn't care about the data, so I did a full wipe of the SSD and re-installed Windows from USB. It took 3+ hours (when it usually takes less than 15 minutes), and after it did finally load, it took close to 5 minutes to boot into Windows. I tried 2 other SSD drives, and ran into the same issue. I then tried to load Windows 11. It loaded, but again, was incredibly slow. The same was the case with some Linux distros (Mint, Ubuntu)
I swapped out the RAM (one stick at a time) from another Dell laptop (i5-5XXX), and it encountered the same issues. No matter what I did, it took forever to do anything. Once it did load to Windows, it took more than a minute to load Microsoft Edge (the plan was to download Firefox), and once it loaded it took forever just to retrieve a webpage.
Has anyone ever had a similar situation that you were able to solve? I'm beginning to think that it might be related to something on the motherboard, and if that's the case, it will probably end up going to electronics recycling. In all the years I've worked on PCs, I've never encountered something like this.
Thanks for reading!
ejn63
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28.6K Posts
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December 15th, 2024 22:14
Does the system correctly identify the AC adapter, or does it show unknown? F2 at powerup to check.
If the system doesn't correctly identify the AC adapter (but it will still run), the notebook will run as if on battery all the time.
HedgeFundManager
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478 Posts
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December 15th, 2024 23:35
Get a new Dell PSU for your machine. You need about 65W to be safe with you machine. I suggest a 90W would be safer as more allows USB PD to be geedy etc.
HedgeFundManager
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478 Posts
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December 16th, 2024 00:31
The old machine will use the smaller barrel Dell power brick which tops out at 130W. I suggest 65W would be best and 90W would be safer.
(edited)
knightfan17
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December 15th, 2024 22:20
@ejn63 - Thanks for responding so quickly. I actually encountered this issue initially, as I used a universal power supply that was not the correct wattage (I believe it was a 45W). When using that one, it did give the "error" at startup (prior to loading windows) that the power adapter could not be detected). My friend brought over the original power adapter and the "error" message went away. I did check in BIOS, and also ran Dell Diagnostics, and everything came back normal and the adapter was recognized.
ejn63
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December 15th, 2024 23:43
One last thing you can check before the system is recycled is that it's clean internally and that the fan is operating correctly -- and if the heatsink pads have never been replaced, that would be a good idea as the system nears its 10th birthday.
Failing that, it likely is a mainboard issue and it's probably time to retire the system. 45 or 65 W is fine for this system (it does not take power from USB -- barrel connector only).
ann_droid
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December 16th, 2024 14:41
Hi
Daft idea as per usual....
Piriform Speccy
knightfan17
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December 16th, 2024 15:24
Thanks to everyone for your responses and input.
Last night, I took the laptop apart and repasted the CPU and video chip. I also went into the BIOS so it would alert me if there are power supply issues.
This AM, I attempted to load Windows again. When first turning it on, it gave the adapter warning, though I'm using the correct adapter (65W). I then tried with a 240W adapter (fat plug, similar to the Dells and HPs from 10 years ago) with an adapter to convert to a smaller plug. It again gave me the adapter warning.
Windows did eventually load, but it took several hours.
Given that the adapter warning was triggered by the actual power supply that came with the laptop, I'm thinking the last thing to try would be to get an OEM adapter to see if that works correctly. I'll also update the BIOS while I'm at it. Outside of those additional steps, I'm out of ideas.
HedgeFundManager
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December 16th, 2024 17:54
In addition to thermal material is to replace the CMOS battery. If Windows is slow to load, this is why a SSD is a better choice as the speed of SSD v hard disk is quite dramatic.
knightfan17
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December 26th, 2024 16:58
I wanted to provide an update.
The OEM power supply showed up, and the laptop now works perfectly. I went with a 90W though the one it came with was 65W.
I'm still not sure why it ran so slow (like taking several minutes just to open up a webpage), as the prior 65W adapter did charge the laptop, but the OEM adapter is exactly what I needed. I'm thinking there might be something wrong with the 65W adapter, so that one is going off to recycle :). Thank you everyone for providing your suggestions
HedgeFundManager
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December 26th, 2024 18:32
The cheap 65W adapters are inadequate which is why world+dog all get 90W or 100W+ chargers
Jhdeleon
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1 Message
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July 27th, 2025 20:21
I have to same issue but I believe it’s just the Dell Insiprion 5559 planned obsolescence. I ran the BIOS and everything is fine. I ran the Dell Diagnostics tool and all is fine but the RealTek network card. The odd thing is that it does not see my WiFi modem. Yet when I plug it into the modem, it shows the name as one the WiFi extenders. Can’t figure it out.