inspiron 3470 running slow

How much memory does the system have, and what type of storage (hard drive or SSD)?

These systems ship with as little as 4G RAM and a spinning hard drive, which is very marginal for Windows 10 or 11.  If you have less than 8G RAM (16 is even better), you need a memory upgrade and if the system is running on a conventional hard drive, that really needs to be replaced with a solid state drive.

besides ssd which would help boot speed as recommended by 10elder, if you had the entry level cpu for this model (pentium gold or celeron) it would be another reason of slowness.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/Inspiron-3470-desktop/inspiron_3470_setupandspecs/system-information?guid=guid-5c837762-90bd-438f-bf20-789fbc77286b&lang=en-us

@jim inspired  - Inspiron 3470 is an older PC model, so when was last time you replaced the motherboard battery?  A weak/dead battery can cause odd symptoms. So you might want to replace the battery before going further, if nothing else than to rule the battery out:

1. Reboot and tap F2 when you see the Dell splash screen to open BIOS setup
2. Copy down all current BIOS settings, to be safe
3. Power off, and unplug power cord from rear of PC
4. Press/hold power button for ~15 sec
5. Open case and remove motherboard battery (check Service Manual for details)
6. Press/hold power button for ~30 sec
7. Install fresh CR2032 3-volt coin cell battery
8. Close up and connect mouse, monitor and keyboard
9. Boot and check performance