Chrome takes 3 minutes to intially load websites / Windows 7

I have an older Dell OptiPlex PC, with 4GB RAM, and a 3GHz CPU.

When I open Chrome, Chrome will take about 2-4 minutes spinning its "in progress" icon to the left of the page title in the tab, before it starts to load a website, when action is seen in the status bar at the bottom of the window.

"Change Proxy settings" > "LAN Settings" > "Automatically detect settings" is unchecked.

What is causing the initial delay?

Is it checking the cache?

Ans) It seems like most such problems are reported on Windows 8.1.

If that's your case, you should wait for Google to fix the problem.

Some solutions that worked for some :

1. Reset TCP/IP: Open cmd.exe as admin, type netsh winsock reset.
2. Go to Chrome Settings, Advanced Settings, scroll down and uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available.
3. Go to folder C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome, delete the folder UserData, restart Chrome, do not open session (sign in). Some Chrome settings might be lost.
4. Disable the antivirus, to check for a possible conflict.
5. Disable Sync.
6. Try running Chrome once as admin, to see if this fixes the problem.
7. Use another browser until Google fixes the problem