Booting Windows 7 really slow...

I'm fed up with this...recently I had 4GBs of RAM, and will, but for now I have it in my WHS because the 2011 release requires 2GBs of RAM...

But I'm very angry with the performance decrease. It's always been this way though. It always has this stupid performance decrease, and lowering my RAM triggered it and that angers me...

My computer takes about 10 minutes before anything will start loading... I've down new installs, used different HDDs, different motherboards, etc. Why! Why does a computer with a Core 2 Quad and 4GBs of RAM (usually it has that) respond slowly...

Is it because my RAM is only DDR2 667? Does Windows 7 not work well with DDR2 667? My CPU isn't the issue, task manager shows the PC basically doing nothing on boot-up. And then out of nowhere, Windows Live Messenger and Lync start, and IE9 opens when I clicked it 5 minutes prior to it opening.

I really want this XPS 420 to behave better starting up...it has a Q6600 and it's a relatively new install of Windows 7...it's a hardware issue, not a software issue.

Also the GPU is good too, ATI Radeon HD 5500 series. Well, new, not hardcore specs, but definitely Windows 7 compatible and DX11-capable. I don't know...

I am using 2gb ram @ 667 right now - win 7 x64 works just fine

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
HD Diagnostic

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

What does your Windows Experience Index show?

Are you using Dell drivers or Windows 7 drivers?

Have you been on Dell's support site for any pointers to such poor performance?