XP Boot problem/Hyper Threading

[jdawg]

Two questions combined into one. First, I just built a new system - but installed some of the hardware after the initial build. When I start up XP, the first boot after not using the computer for a while, it starts up fine except the screens slowly populates from top to bottom - not meaning when the standard start up info is displayed, but when XP actually starts to show i.e. user names/color screen. It will act like this during the entire session. However, if I immediately press the reset button - re-loading XP, the computer works great, no crashes or anything. Any idea what can cause this? It's not that big of a deal, and my computer starts up real fast since I have a SATA RAID, I suppose I'm a perfectionist. Also, if I chose "restart" - no problem. It's only during initial start up when the computer has been shut down for a while.

Secondly, since I upgraded my CPU after the initial build, hyper threading is not actually enabled. I was told (and read) that I would have to re-install XP to enable that functionality. Would using XP "repair" be enough? Also, am I really missing anything by not having hyper threading enabled? (motherboard does support hyper threading)

Here's what I have:

XP home editon SP2
P4 3.0G 800Mhz 478pin Prescott (4 year old P4 1.6G was old CPU)
1GB DDR400 PC3200 RAM 184 PIN
2X WD 7200 rpm SATA 74G (150G total) used as a 0 SATA RAID - best money I ever spent on hardware
24 BIT sound card - Creative
ATI 9250 128DDR video card (not a gamer...yet)
PC Chips 952 V3.0 mobo (don't laugh, it's all I needed)
Antec truepower 330W power supply
I have a WINTV-PVR-150 TV tuner card on the way.

BTW, the SATA RAID has literally halved the boot up time, and doulbed the speed of EVERY thing else on my computer - well worth the money for $128 for two drives (mobo supports SATA RAID 0) I used to have a single PATA 7200 WD 8MB buffer drive. Also, these new SATA WD drives are so quiet, I can't hear them! You know that blue line that goes across the screen when Windows starts up..that used to go across more than nine times - now, after SATA RAID, it never makes it past two passes.

[ComputerNut]

Originally Posted by jdawg Secondly, since I upgraded my CPU after the initial build, hyper threading is not actually enabled. I was told (and read) that I would have to re-install XP to enable that functionality. Would using XP "repair" be enough? Also, am I really missing anything by not having hyper threading enabled? (motherboard does support hyper threading)

I suppose it could work, the repair install virtually replaces the system files with fresh ones. You could try it and see if it helps or not. if not then if this is purely software based, a re-install may be inorder. as for disabling HT, if you play some pretty intensive games, having HT off does rather slow things down, I noticed a significant slow down when playing GTA3 when I had HT off. So IMO, try to make the effort to get HT back on.

Oh yeah, and Welcome to PCMech!

HTH,
CN