Dell Dimension 4600, just running slow everywhere.

[btcomm1]

It's running very slow, if I boot off of a memtest86 cd the first test takes at least 20 seconds to complete test number 1 and the ram that is in this thing is ddr pc3200. That just can't be right usually the first test will last about 1 second if that. I swapped out the ram, I tried differn't ram slots, doesn't matter. If you boot windows it's extremely slow. If I boot off of memtest86 it's extremely slow. Is there any possible setting in the bios that might cause this to happen? Or would you guys pretty much just say that the motherboard is bad? The computer has built in onboard video.

Also during the memtest, the walltime is not smoothly ticking every second, it ticks every other second, somtimes it will go at 3 seconds at a time.

 

[mechBgon]

Any chance the CPU is overheating and throttling?

 

[btcomm1]

Well, I don't see how that would be possible seeing as it was off for an extended period of time and booted up directly into memtest. I will see if the dell bios has temp info in it though.

 

[John]

mech has a good suggestion. I've seen those P4 retention clips break and the hsf no longer makes good contact with the cpu. Another option is to boot into the Dell bios and hit Alt+F to reset to defaults, save and exit, now run memtest86+ again.

 

[btcomm1]

Awesome, I did the reset to defaults and now it's running well again. I just have no idea what setting you could possibly change in the Dell bios that would cause that to happen though. Thanks John.

 

[John]

There's an option to run the cpu in compatibility mode which could have been the culprit. You're most welcome and I'm glad everything worked out. 🙂