new computer running slow

[GRRRR]

I am relatively new to this whole area and I was wondering If anyone
can help me
I've just built a complete system. Everything on it works fine
except it's realy slow and ive got no idea why. It takes about 10 minutes to load up each time and when I was installing windows it took about 4 hours.
It's a pentium 4 2.66ghz with 256mb pc2100 Ram and a 128mb video card so it should have no trouble at all


secondly, (on a diferen't pc) I had to put in a new motherboard and now it won't recognise the cd drives.
They are both there in the bios but when I try and boot from cd It says boot faliure. In windows it thinks all cd's are audio disks

thanks

 

[ownage]

ok...the reason why your comp is running slow is that you only have 256mb of RAM. and the processor speed isnt that fast either.

 

[dude_se]

my processor is 504mhz and 192mb of ram. its crap but can handle xp fine.

 

[David Lindon]

Go to task manage and see how much processor is being used.

 

[mighty_chick]

actually my computer after i changed mobo and cpu is taking like 3 mins to load the desktop. so try reformatting with fdisk or something

 

[zero4zero]

You probably have a Hard disk/cdrom setting problem.
Your hard disk / cdrom cable jumpers could be improperly set up and you are in PIO mode and not in DMA, which results in poor data transfer. I would suggest you check your hardward device settings for your hard disk and also your cdrom. If they are not DMA, and you cannot set it DMA then you have a jumper setting issue problem. [10 minutes to boot up means bios is searching for the operating system and it takes it that long to find it]. Also, if you have 2 hard disks and installed your operating system on the disk that is the slave (for the bios), then you should change their order in your bios settings.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

ok...the reason why your comp is running slow is that you only have 256mb of RAM. and the processor speed isnt that fast either.

I know for sure this is not true. The specs he has would have no problem running Windows XP.

 

[Kage]

Yeah. Why do some people tihnk that as soon as a new model comes out in CPU or something, this makes older ones (by about a few months usually hehe) obsolete? It's not that old to tell the truth, and can definetly run XP no probs. I assume it's something to do with the way all the drives are connected to the motherboard

Hope this helps

 

[rody084]

one thing u could try is to put the 2HD's on the same channel and the CD drive on another (ie: secondary) by itself. The channel can only go as fast as the slowest drive since information has to get through the cable and back or sumthing like that... give it a try... and yea... deffintily MORE RAM!

 

[GRRRR]

ok, I originaly thought it could have been not enough memory or a crap CPU, then I ran SiSoft CPU and RAM benchmarking tests and they all came out much lower than what they should be. (particulaly, CPU arithmatic, scored patheticly low). but still recognised my system fine


Secondly, the computer doesn't start to run slow until after it's found the os and anything after that point (ie loading desktop/games)
I did Check the hard drive data transfer mode and It was set to DMA If Available


Thanks