Computer is ungodly slow.

[Booster]

I have a P4 2.4 Ghz Northwood with 533 FSB, no HT on an Intel 845PE motherboard with 512 Megs of DDR333 memory and a 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 harddrive with 8 Megs cache. For video I have a separate video card (Radeon 9000 64 megs). Running WinXP Pro SP2, I often get horrendous slowdowns, especially when transferring files over the built-in network card (Realtek 8101L chip IIRC). And generally the system is very slow and non-responsive when using many USB devices like an USB DSL modem working and network card working and when it also writes to a hard drive, it takes about a freaking minute just to launch IE. It's driving me nuts.

How do you think, is this normal behaviour for such a system, or maybe it's possible to tweak it (the network card) not to consume so much CPU power, I wonder why it does.

Or the last resort would be to upgrade? I don't game so I pretty much don't care for the computer if it isn't slow like this. What could I upgrade for a reasonable price, not rebuilding the whole thing, that would you think would eradicate the bottlenecks?

 

[Anubis]

sounds like your HDD is set to PIO mode, change it to DMA and it should fix the HDD issues you are haveing

reinstalling windows usially fixes things also

 

[Booster]

Originally posted by: Anubis
sounds like your HDD is set to PIO mode, change it to DMA and it should fix the HDD issues you are haveing

reinstalling windows usially fixes things also

No, I reinstalled Windows about 3 months ago and I also use Crapcleaner on it regularly. The drive is not in PIO mode definitely, I benchmarked the entire system with Sisoft Sandra and it's performance figures are where they should be for this hardware. I suspect either the harddrive or network card is the bottleneck. Say, I upgrade CPU+board and keep the hard drive, I wonder if that would change anything. And if I upgrade the harddrive, the board doesn't have any SATA connectors, what model could I buy? I think I'll be replacing the whole thing sometime next year since it's pretty dated already, but I don't think a 2.4 Ghz should be this slow anyway. Of course it isn't dualcore but I'm not pushing it that hard in any case.

 

[Anubis]

you can run seatools on your HDD, you can download it from the seagate website and itll tell you if your HDD is dieing, only way to rule out nic to to take it out and try a new one

 

[mechBgon]

1) What exact brand and model is the motherboard, and what PCI cards (if any) do you have installed?

2) If your cable/DSL modem has an Ethernet port, I suggest putting a Netgear RP614 between your modem and your computers. You could just be having nasty collision problems that the router's switch will alleviate, and the router will also provide a perimeter firewall to protect all your PCs. You must have more than one, if you're transferring files over Ethernet...

3) What antivirus software do you use, and please be exact about the version, not just "Norton" or "McAfee", etc.

4) Do you have the Windows Firewall enabled, or if not, what other firewall software are you using

 

[Booster]

1) What exact brand and model is the motherboard, and what PCI cards (if any) do you have installed?

2) If your cable/DSL modem has an Ethernet port, I suggest putting a Netgear RP614 between your modem and your computers. You could just be having nasty collision problems that the router's switch will alleviate, and the router will also provide a perimeter firewall to protect all your PCs. You must have more than one, if you're transferring files over Ethernet...

3) What antivirus software do you use, and please be exact about the version, not just "Norton" or "McAfee", etc.

4) Do you have the Windows Firewall enabled, or if not, what other firewall software are you using

1) The motherboard is an Epox 4PEA9I Rev. 2.2, and there is only one PCI card - a modem I don't use.
2) The DSL modem doesn't have an Ethernet port, unfortunately. It connects directly to the line.
3) I use Norton Internet security 2005, so NAV 2005.
4) The Windows firewall is disabled by the NIS 2005.

I wonder if it could be a configuration problem.

 

[mechBgon]

Have you run a LiveUpdate and done a virus scan? If you haven't already done so, go through your Norton Antivirus configuration panels and enable Heuristics (maximum), the Expanded Threats (adware/spyware/hack tools/etc), and scanning within compressed files, for both the real-time protection and the on-demand scan.

Also, if you haven't done so, try some antispyware scans too. Microsoft Antispyware Beta from http://www.microsoft.com and Webroot Spysweeper 30-day trialware from http://www.webroot.com/consumer, and make sure to have WinsockFix on hand to run after you tear out any spyware that is discovered.

Other than that, could you describe your network. And if it were me, I would make the DSL provider take back the modem and give me one that has an Ethernet connection, so I could use a router.

 

[Booster]

Have you run a LiveUpdate and done a virus scan?

Yeah sure, I also use Adaware.

Other than that, could you describe your network. And if it were me, I would make the DSL provider take back the modem and give me one that has an Ethernet connection, so I could use a router.

I have two network connections, one connects to a local network via Ethernet directly to the second computer, and another one is DSL. I'm afraid the ISP wouldn't really replace the modem, plus I don't need to connect another computer to the Internet.

All in all, I think it's just that the PC is slow and crippled by it's nature. What pisses me off however, I first lauched WinXP on a Celeron 600 and it was slow, now 4 times more megahertz, 4 times the cache etc, it's still slow. Just what this sucker needs to run smooth?

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Booster
3) I use Norton Internet security 2005, so NAV 2005.
4) The Windows firewall is disabled by the NIS 2005.

I wonder if it could be a configuration problem.

There's your problem. Trash Norton anything ... watch your system fly.

There are plenty of other options a lot better than Norton.

Norton Internet Security causes problems for a lot of people.

 

[mechBgon]

So you are using a crossover cable (not a standard network cable) directly between two network ports on the two computers, right? And if I were stuck with a USB-only modem, I'd get a different ISP! Customer's always right. :evil:

 

[Booster]

So you are using a crossover cable (not a standard network cable) directly between two network ports on the two computers, right?

Exactly.

And if I were stuck with a USB-only modem, I'd get a different ISP! Customer's always right.

I thought about switching ISPs but I would stick to this one until about New Year or so since I'm quite busy plus I have more important problems now.

Trash Norton anything ... watch your system fly.

There are plenty of other options a lot better than Norton.

I thouht of this myself, noticed the damn thing getting a little slower with Norton software on it. What would you recommend for an antivirus and a firewall instead?

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Booster
I thouht of this myself, noticed the damn thing getting a little slower with Norton software on it. What would you recommend for an antivirus and a firewall instead?

I personally don't use a software firewall; when I did, I used Tiny Personal Firewall (I believe it is called Tiny Desktop Pro or something now).

As for anti-virus (which is far more important, IMHO), I like AVG. Grisoft offers a completely free version with regular updates, as well as the obligatory pay versions.

 

[mechBgon]

My picks would be Kaspersky Antivirus Personal and the Windows Firewall (plus a router, except I'm stuck on dial-up ). If you want outbound firewall monitoring, then Kaspersky Personal Security Suite would give you that, $60 for a 2-year license. edit: they got trial versions here if you want to see what effect it has on your issue: http://www.kaspersky.com/trials

For more options and info, including free antivirus and firewall, there's a stickied thread at the top of the Software forum here with gobs of info.

 

[Booster]

As for anti-virus (which is far more important, IMHO), I like AVG. Grisoft offers a completely free version with regular updates, as well as the obligatory pay versions.

Thanks, will give it a shot I guess.

Heading off to software forum now as mechBgon suggested.