Dead Mobo, New Mobo, Windows loads slow and CPU @ 50% idle

[slazareth]

Alright, I had a motherboard that died (ASUS P4S800) I needed a quick fix so I ran to Compusa and bought a new motherboard (Abit VT7) After putting it in I repaired windows, but everything was running slow as far as boot up. The Windows black screen with the blue bar goes quick and fine, and then once the screen blinks and the mouse appears on black it takes a while before the windows login screen (I have it set to autologin with tweakui). Then it takes a while before it says loading your settings or whatever, then finally it boots into windows.

Right now I'm idling and running CPU at 53%. The load up and idle cpu were the same when I ran msconfig and rebooted into diagnostic mode. Next I ran disk defrag and check disk, still no fix. So I reformatted the disk and reinstalled windows. Same story. Everything runs pretty alright, but the cpu rocking the 50% area is no good.

Under Processes in task manager, System Idle Process is at 88-90% so obviously something is off here. Anyway, I've got a new mobo (Asus P4P800SE) coming from newegg and when it gets here I'm returning this Abit board. However I'd like to find out what is up with this crazy cpu idle. Any suggestions or things I should try and do?

here's the system specs
abit vt7
p4 2.8GHz Prescott
1GB Kingston DDR
80GB Western Digital (system) ATA
160GB Seagate (storage) ATA
Nvidia Geforce FX 5200

Please help me guys! Thanks!

 

[forumposter32]

If no one answers, go to hardwareforumz.com or techsupportforum.com

 

[slazareth]

Thanks man, I'll go there and post. An added note... I ran FreshDiagnose and did a benchmark on my CPU. It ranked my processor lowest on the charts. Even below a Celeron 700MHz chip.

 

[imported_Phil]

You've installed all the drivers from the new motherboard CD, yes?

 

[FlyingPenguin]

You need to do a FULL Windows Repair install and not just a Sector Repair from the Recovery Console, right? Instructions here: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Did you install the latest service pack after the Repair Install? I've seen problems when performing a Repair Install on an SP2 system, for instance, using an SP1 CD and then failing to install SP2 afterwards. You should always install AT LEAST the same service pack as you had installed prior to the Repair.

Mobo drivers would be my first suspicion as well. Very first drivers that need to be loaded are the latest mobo drivers, then your video drivers followed by everything else. Don't rely on WInXP's generic drivers.

It's rare, but sometimes you just have a particular hardware configuration that doesn't survive a Windows Repair Install and you have no choice but to do a clean install. However I really think you have a driver issue.

Another thing you can try is to do a Windows Repair Install again but this time pull all cards except the video card, and disable all onboard devices (sound, NIC, USB, etc) until Windows installs, Then install the mobo drivers and then install and turn on all devices and install the video, sound, and whatever other drivers.

Hope this helps...

 

[Ike0069]

As Penguin stated, make sure you DO NOT use the recovery console.
Follow the instructions from that link exactly and that should work. i agree that it does sound like a driver issue. So just make sure that you reinstall ALL the ne-sary drivers.

If it doesn't work, then I would backup what is needed, and do a complete reformat.

 

[slazareth]

well, After doing the repair, things were kinda weird. Yes I did the repair you guys linked too. It was as if I had reinstalled windows, but all of my programs and such were still present. Anyway after the repair I formatted the drive and reinstalled windows. I installed the drivers from the mobo cd earlier and it didn't seem to make a difference. I checked and my firmware is up to date. Anyway, I'm going to look for updated drivers for the mobo and try those. Thanks for all the input.

 

[slazareth]

Some more info... CPU-Z info

Core Speed: 2813.8MHz (around this fluctuating)
Multiplier: x14.0
FSB: 201.0MHz
Bus Speed: 804MHz (around this fluctuating)
L1 Data: 16 KBytes
L1 Trace: 12 Kuops
Level 2: 1024KBytes

Also, I ran CPU Benchmark in FreshDiagnose... My processor ranked lowest on the charts. Below an Intel Celeron 700MHz that's horrible. something is terribly wrong.

 

[Andres3605]

is your cpu temp ok?