fresh build running slow for highend specs

[alphabravoj5t]

This is a fresh build; everything is new. It has no viruses and only one program ever installed on it, thats MS Office. BIOS is up to date, so are motherboard and graphics drivers.

computer is running slow. MS Word documents are slow to open and close when handling SMALL (<1mb) documents.

my specs:
e8400 E0 @ 3ghz
Asus P5Q Pro
A-Data 800mhz 2gb ram
8800gtx
7200.11 32mb 500gb barracuda
windows XP

 

[Billb2]

Does CPU-Z say your CPU and memory are configured correctly?
Any problems in Device Manager?
In Task Manager, left click the CPU column. What's using resources?
Better yet, download Process Explorer to see what's using resources.

 

[alphabravoj5t]

only System Idle Process is using 99 CPU but 28k mem usage

 

[oynaz]

Sounds like your HDD is the culprit in some way.

Make sure you have the newest drivers - especially for the chipset.

Who makes Barracuda? Seagate? In any case, download your HDD manufacturer's diagnosis tools and see what they tell you.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: oynaz
Sounds like your HDD is the culprit in some way.

Make sure you have the newest drivers - especially for the chipset.

Who makes Barracuda? Seagate? In any case, download your HDD manufacturer's diagnosis tools and see what they tell you.

I agree. Sounds like it's the hard drive. If that doesn't turn anything up it wouldn't hurt to run Memtest overnight.

 

[alphabravoj5t]

Seagate is indeed the manufacterer of the barracuda. I ran SeaTools (their utility) and everything checks out fine. the HDD passed all of the tests.
I agree with you, though, i believe its the HDD. or something is holding my processor back.
i will run memtest tonight.

 

[OverVolt]

Specifically I could see the HDD controller as the culprit.

Check your rails, make sure they are within spec. I had a HDD controller die on me eventually. It was doing about 10mb/s read on a raptor. Download a HDD benchmark to see the read-write and I/O per sec. Make sure you install all the drivers on the CD first, then update them with ones from online.

Thats what I do anyway.

 

[DSF]

Download and run HD Tune and see what it says. As OverVolt said, it's possible that your drive is configured incorrectly making it hog resources for simple tasks even if there's nothing physically or electronically wrong with the drive itself.

 

[alphabravoj5t]

my HDD was benchmarked at 90mb/s, 12ms random access, so thats good. PSU sensor readings: cpu core: 2.43 volts; Aux - 3.52 v; +3.3v @ 3.31v; +5v @ 5.51v; +12V @ 12.83v; -5v @ 4.00V

also: something interesting.. I have 1066 RAM im running,.. referred to the motherboard book and its listed as compatible but whenever it runs are 1066 or 1002mhz i get frequent lockups followed by blue screens of death.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: alphabravoj5t
also: something interesting.. I have 1066 RAM im running,.. referred to the motherboard book and its listed as compatible but whenever it runs are 1066 or 1002mhz i get frequent lockups followed by blue screens of death.

Did you manually set the voltage and timings?

 

[alphabravoj5t]

yes.. i manually adjusted the ram speed to 1066 and the voltage to 2.1 as it says on the RAM packaging;

NEWS: i just plugged in an older HDD, a 7200.10, that has only 8mb of cache and its no upgrade,.. its only slightly slower than my primary 7200.11 32mb 500gb hdd

note: I had the same 1066 RAM instability (with different ram) on a 780i SLI motherboard. both setups used the same PSU. could it be the PSU, by any chance?