slow computer

[useless]

Help I built my first computer two months ago, bought and installed XP home, worked fine. Last week the computer had a fatal error crash. I didnt see what it was as someone just rebooted the computer.

Now it goes slower than a ZX SPectrum !!! whats going on, I tried a restore, no good so last night done a complete FORMAT OF HARD DRIVE AND CLEAN INSTALL, still I find Im dealing with some form of abacus !

can any one help please

regards

Useless

[ktkendall]

Sounds like a possible virus, but you would think the reformat and reinstall would have taken care of that, but I've heard of instances where even after all that the virus reemerges.. Could be a piece of hardware connected to that PC has partially malefunctioned and is dragging the system down. Drives are good for that when they begin to fail. How does it look in device manager??? Check your system event viewer for any clues and what all is running in the backround, check your task manager to see what all services and apps are running and the msconfig utility you can use to clear out the startup menu. How well did the reinstall go??? If it were a hardware problem I would think it really would have taken a long time to reinstall windows and may even have gotten hung up. Check for virus and spyware...

[raftero]

if no virus is found(format should have correcded that)as kendal said,i would undo everything and try installing one at a time to eliminate each one as the problem.

[useless]

cheers kendal and raf, kendal I think you are right with the hardware issue, as it took almost an hour, or more to format the disk when I inserted the Xp disk to clean install. Which is way slower than normal. I did have macaffe virus software on the machine prior to problems but no virus was detected.

So does it sound like it is a hardware problem ?

If it is a hardware problem how do I find out what hardware is not working properly.

Oh one other thing which may be the problem, I went into bios recently to try and clock (think this is right expression) my processor. I checked with amd and they said my processor runs at 133mhz, so I changed the frequency clock speed to that. thinking about it I think thats when the problems occured !!

Raf, what do you mean install one at a time, how do you clean install one at a time? sorry don't mean to be thick.

To clarify the clean install has not worked, its still really slow.

cheers

Terry

[ktkendall]

I would go in and set BIOS settings back so your processor and memory runs at it default but It does sound like the harddrive is going bad. Usually the manufacturers of the drive have diagnostic utilities that you can run to check the health of the drive...Building the system one device at a time means just starting with the basics (HD, MEM, PROC, VIDEO, CDROM) and getting windows loaded and up and running than add each other device one at a time till you find the one that is faulty but in your case if its the harddrive then you may want to aquire a new one.. A faulty Harddrive can definately cause the troubles your having, and the way long format does give you a clue that it may indeed be the HD...

[useless]

kendall, if it is the harddrive how exactly can I check this?

and I had already changed the BIOS back, but to no avail, still not working.

If something is wrong with the hard drive would it mean I would have to replace it ? does the manufacturer take responsibility?

thanks for your help so far kendall

[raftero]

go to mfg.web sight,they will have a tool to down load to check the drive.if it is defective the guarentee should cover it since you have only had it 2mo.just contact them.i have never had one to fail but i think that is correct,someone correct me if i am wrong.

[andyms18a]

your cpu runs at 133 also check dma is enabled in device manager http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=winxp

[ktkendall]

Usually either in the box with the harddrive if you bought it retail of downloadable from the manufacturers website will be found a disk diagnostic utility. It will usually be put on a floppy and be run from a boot floppy, so that way it can really check all aspects of the drive in question....

[useless]

it would seem that i had messed up slightly, things seem to be better at the moment.

I had been advised to have to ide cables as it would help the speed of the drive. I had added the new cable and ran the hard drive from the second IDE slot. and I dont think it was recognised properly.

ive set the ide cable back and it now runs the hard drive and dvd drive together

thanks for all your help

cheers

[ktkendall]

You may have had the jumpers wrong to match up with the way you had the drives positioned on the IDE channels and cables....

[JPMiller]

OK....the correct setup for drive connection to the motherboard is as follows..
Harddrive 1 attached to farthest connector on IDE cable and jumpers set to Master on the drive between the power connector and the cable...that cable is connected to the motherboard at IDE 1 (should be silkscreened to board next to the connectors.
CDRom 1 attached to farthest connector on IDE cable and jumpers set to Master on the drive between the power connector and the cable...that cable is connected to the motherboard at IDE 2
Any other optical drives should be set to slave and attached at center connector on cable attached to the original CDRom/CDRW?DVD
Any other hardrive should be set to slave and attached at center connector on cable attached to primary harddrive.
When booting watch the post values and make sure harddrive is appearing as IDE Primary Master
and the CDRom is stated as IDE Secondary Master.