Dell announced Thursday that it's delaying the release of its third-quarter financial results, just as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has formalized its investigation into the PC manufacturer's accounting practices.

Originally scheduled to report its Q3 earnings today, along with rival Hewlett-Packard, Dell said in a notice on its Web site that it now intends to announce its numbers by the end of the month.

"The move from the originally scheduled date of Nov. 16 reflects the level of complexity the company is facing in the preparation of its preliminary results," a Dell spokesman wrote in the online announcement. "This complexity arises out of the ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the company's Audit Committee into certain accounting and financial reporting matters, and the fact that the company has not filed its Form 10-Q for the second fiscal quarter."

The SEC began an informal investigation of Dell and potential account irregularities in August 2005. Dell said today's delay in its earnings report isn't related to the upgrading of the SEC's efforts to a formalized probe.

Dell had reported that second-quarter sales rose 5% compared with the same quarter in 2005, to $14.1 billion. Those results, however, marked the company's second consecutive quarter-to-quarter decline in sales and profits.