Diagnosing a slow AMD 64 bit

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ubin
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Ubin

MSI K8N neo platinum, AMD 64 2800 I gig DDR ram 600 watt power supply( new
yesterday, fist step in resolution, replaced a 380). ATI 9800Pro 128MB 80
gig WD sata
XP Pro all updates.

This thing runs slow as molasses, first indicator...POST is quick..As
desktop appears the icons appear as generic images of some sort and slowly
change to their respective images...sometimes takes 15 seconds or so. There
is virtually nothing other than AV set to load at start-up.

Most applications take 10's of seconds to load after the initial double
click, but load faster the second instance.
Firefox will take upwards of 30 seconds to load.

I am not sure if I bunged anything up when I first built this as I tweaked
some of the services and such on advice from the "blackviper" site for
security measures///could this all stem from a bad install?
Can I do a repair install without losing a bunch of data( I do have
everything backed up)
IS there a way to reinstall my sata driver, I just have a feeling their is
something wrong their as there was a weird glitch during that install
stage( very very brief)

Any advice on where to look?

Thanks
 
MSI K8N neo platinum, AMD 64 2800 I gig DDR ram 600 watt power supply( new
yesterday, fist step in resolution, replaced a 380). ATI 9800Pro 128MB 80
gig WD sata
XP Pro all updates.

This thing runs slow as molasses, first indicator...POST is quick..As
desktop appears the icons appear as generic images of some sort and slowly
change to their respective images...sometimes takes 15 seconds or so. There
is virtually nothing other than AV set to load at start-up.

Most applications take 10's of seconds to load after the initial double
click, but load faster the second instance.
Firefox will take upwards of 30 seconds to load.

I am not sure if I bunged anything up when I first built this as I tweaked
some of the services and such on advice from the "blackviper" site for
security measures///could this all stem from a bad install?
Can I do a repair install without losing a bunch of data( I do have
everything backed up)
IS there a way to reinstall my sata driver, I just have a feeling their is
something wrong their as there was a weird glitch during that install
stage( very very brief)

Any advice on where to look?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Control-Alt-Delete to Task Manager. What processes are running ?
Is one of the processes at 100% ?

Is the hard drive running in PIO mode ?

If you benchmark the drive, and you get a flat line at about
4MB/sec transfer rate, then you are likely in PIO mode. If
you get a tilted line at about 60MB/sec at the start of
the disk and 40MB/sec at the end of the disk, then you are
in the more desirable DMA mode.

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

The processor caches could be disabled, but because you
say the second instance of a program loads faster, that
probably isn't it.

This is a good program for listing info about your system.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Paul
 
MSI K8N neo platinum, AMD 64 2800 I gig DDR ram 600 watt power supply( new
yesterday, fist step in resolution, replaced a 380). ATI 9800Pro 128MB 80
gig WD sata
XP Pro all updates.

This thing runs slow as molasses, first indicator...POST is quick..As
desktop appears the icons appear as generic images of some sort and slowly
change to their respective images...sometimes takes 15 seconds or so. There
is virtually nothing other than AV set to load at start-up.

Most applications take 10's of seconds to load after the initial double
click, but load faster the second instance.
Firefox will take upwards of 30 seconds to load.

I am not sure if I bunged anything up when I first built this as I tweaked
some of the services and such on advice from the "blackviper" site for
security measures///could this all stem from a bad install?
Can I do a repair install without losing a bunch of data( I do have
everything backed up)
IS there a way to reinstall my sata driver, I just have a feeling their is
something wrong their as there was a weird glitch during that install
stage( very very brief)

Any advice on where to look?
Click to expand...
Firstly at the drivers. Second do a defrag. After that, run your
favourite Adware/Spyweare tool. Also download Windows Startup Inspector
(www.windowsstartup.com) and disable the reams of stuff not needed.



--
Conor

I'm really a nice guy. If I had friends, they would tell you.

Earn commission on online purchases, £2.50 just for signing up:
http://www.TopCashBack.co.uk/Conor/ref/index.htm
 
Paul said:
Control-Alt-Delete to Task Manager. What processes are running ?
Is one of the processes at 100% ?
Click to expand...


Thanks very much for your response....
System idle at 98-99 percent, everything else at 0
Is the hard drive running in PIO mode ?

If you benchmark the drive, and you get a flat line at about
4MB/sec transfer rate, then you are likely in PIO mode. If
you get a tilted line at about 60MB/sec at the start of
the disk and 40MB/sec at the end of the disk, then you are
in the more desirable DMA mode.
Click to expand...

Not sure how to interpret...screenshot here
http://www.gotbonus.com/hdtach.GIF
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

The processor caches could be disabled, but because you
say the second instance of a program loads faster, that
probably isn't it.

This is a good program for listing info about your system.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181
Click to expand...

Alright here is the report...see anything?
( should i overlclock this system, and how?)
http://www.gotbonus.com/report.htm
 
MSI K8N neo platinum, AMD 64 2800 I gig DDR ram 600 watt power supply( new
yesterday, fist step in resolution, replaced a 380). ATI 9800Pro 128MB 80
gig WD sata
XP Pro all updates.

This thing runs slow as molasses, first indicator...POST is quick..As
desktop appears the icons appear as generic images of some sort and
slowly
change to their respective images...sometimes takes 15 seconds or so.
There
is virtually nothing other than AV set to load at start-up.

Most applications take 10's of seconds to load after the initial double
click, but load faster the second instance.
Firefox will take upwards of 30 seconds to load.

I am not sure if I bunged anything up when I first built this as I tweaked
some of the services and such on advice from the "blackviper" site for
security measures///could this all stem from a bad install?
Can I do a repair install without losing a bunch of data( I do have
everything backed up)
IS there a way to reinstall my sata driver, I just have a feeling their
is
something wrong their as there was a weird glitch during that install
stage( very very brief)

Any advice on where to look?
Click to expand...
Firstly at the drivers. Second do a defrag. After that, run your
favourite Adware/Spyweare tool. Also download Windows Startup Inspector
(www.windowsstartup.com) and disable the reams of stuff not needed.

What is the best way to check the drivers?
Start-up:
Only item that was present other than avg was the yahoo pager( not sure
where that came from)

--
Conor

I'm really a nice guy. If I had friends, they would tell you.

Earn commission on online purchases, £2.50 just for signing up:
http://www.TopCashBack.co.uk/Conor/ref/index.htm
 
Ubin said:
Thanks very much for your response....
System idle at 98-99 percent, everything else at 0
Click to expand...

In device manager i find that the drive is running as a serial ATA with
write caching enabled, it IS an 80 gig WD sata( forgot to mention that).
The XP speed test tells me this...
Theorhetical limit 150.0
burst speed 96.0
sustained speed 58.3
Whatever that may mean
 
Ubin said:
Thanks very much for your response....
System idle at 98-99 percent, everything else at 0


Not sure how to interpret...screenshot here
http://www.gotbonus.com/hdtach.GIF


Alright here is the report...see anything?
( should i overlclock this system, and how?)
http://www.gotbonus.com/report.htm
Click to expand...

Your HDTach is perfectly normal :-) Disk looks OK.

I waded through report.htm and I find it a bit strange
how your "Memory Read", "Memory Write", "Memory Latency"
are so good, when the memory is running at 3-3-3-8. In
other words, nothing bad looking there.

In short, the few hardware type things I understand,
look perfectly normal.

I notice you have a bit of hardware connected to the
machine, like a printer and iPod. If you strip out
the extra bits (unplug them), do the symptoms change ?
Removing hardware a bit at a time, sometimes uncovers
the culprit.

To eliminate software, you could try getting a
brand new or a spare disk from somewhere. Do a
clean install (leaving your other disks disconnected,
so there is no chance of anything from the old disks
polluting the new disk). Then repeat some of your
tests. It could be this is a software induced problem
caused by some spyware or antivirus product. If a
clean install on a new disk by itself doesn't do anything
strange, and yet the old system does, then I'd be looking
further at the software side of things. If the clean
install also looks screwy, then it is time to suspect
hardware or some combination of things you have connected,
that is doing it.

At this point in the process, you are still collecting
symptoms. You cannot make a diagnosis, until something
out of the ordinary pops up.

I notice your iPod is declared as a 37GB disk :-)
Is it possible the OS is searching the iPod when
you attempt to use the file system ?

Paul
 
Paul said:
Your HDTach is perfectly normal :-) Disk looks OK.

I waded through report.htm and I find it a bit strange
how your "Memory Read", "Memory Write", "Memory Latency"
are so good, when the memory is running at 3-3-3-8. In
other words, nothing bad looking there.

In short, the few hardware type things I understand,
look perfectly normal.

I notice you have a bit of hardware connected to the
machine, like a printer and iPod. If you strip out
the extra bits (unplug them), do the symptoms change ?
Removing hardware a bit at a time, sometimes uncovers
the culprit.

To eliminate software, you could try getting a
brand new or a spare disk from somewhere. Do a
clean install (leaving your other disks disconnected,
so there is no chance of anything from the old disks
polluting the new disk). Then repeat some of your
tests. It could be this is a software induced problem
caused by some spyware or antivirus product. If a
clean install on a new disk by itself doesn't do anything
strange, and yet the old system does, then I'd be looking
further at the software side of things. If the clean
install also looks screwy, then it is time to suspect
hardware or some combination of things you have connected,
that is doing it.

At this point in the process, you are still collecting
symptoms. You cannot make a diagnosis, until something
out of the ordinary pops up.

I notice your iPod is declared as a 37GB disk :-)
Is it possible the OS is searching the iPod when
you attempt to use the file system ?

Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks much for your insight, i will be taking your advice and trying to
further diagnose.
Going to remove the ipod first and reboot and see what happens.
I have everything backed up so i amy just do a reinstall of the OS.
 
Ubin said:
Thanks much for your insight, i will be taking your advice and trying to
further diagnose.
Going to remove the ipod first and reboot and see what happens.
I have everything backed up so i amy just do a reinstall of the OS.
Click to expand...

No change with the iPod gone.
I am really starting to think that i bunged up the OS trying to tweak it.

Hopefully i will have the time to do a resinstall soon.
 
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