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I am at my wits end. Please help.

X

Xanthguy

Member
Okay, so recently I formatted my hard drive because somehow my command.com and himem.sys files got corrupted.
I clean installed WinXP, but ever since then my comp just hasn't been the same.

Specs:

1.4gig Athlon T-Bird (not overclocked) with Volcano 2 Fan and Arctic Silver
EPoX 8k7a Mobo
1 stick 256M DDR 2100 (not overclocked, no heatsink)


Issues:

Winamp will not play MP3's without skipping regularly (especially when I open other programs.)
System is much much slower than usual, even on bootup and especially on program open.
CD Burner continually fails now (1 out of every 2 times) whereas it was reliable before.
CPU usage jumps to 100% every time I open a program, no matter what it is.
Partition Magic Failed to create new partition: now computer won't see 15gigs of my hard drive. *edit fixed this with chkdsk/p. phew!*
Even got low Virtual Memory indicator for first time in Comp's history.

I checked my Bios: fans seem to be operational, 5-6000 RPM, CPU temp ~ 40-50 degrees.
My ram seems to be all registering at POST (256 M DDR 2100).

Now, to me the Winamp skipping seemed like a Ram problem, but all my ram seems to be registering.
Is it my CPU? What's wrong? Maybe a bad windows XP install? (I did switch from FAT32 to NTFS by the way.)

Should I reformat, remove all partitions and start over? Do I need to buy more ram, or *gulp* new processor?

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP!!!

--Xg
 
per chance some things to look for:

1) Of course, first thing with a slow system, virus? Always run antivirus software.
2) That ruled out, did you do a full or quick format when you formatted it? Rule of thumb is always do a full format unless its a brand spanking new drive from the factory.
3) Drivers, drivers, drivers. Did you make sure you installed the drivers for every component? Sound card, video card are the biggies. Don't just use Microsofts drivers for them but go to their own respective sites and get the latest drivers.

From your description it just sounds like you have a program running in the background that's just hogging up the CPU time. I'd check that.
 
I think I might have fixed it. Once I got rid of my partition error, I used Repair Windows Console, and it asked me to browse for my soundcard drivers during installation; I guess it must have been misplaced file paths for my soundblaster drivers. ARGH! Soundblaster definately has caused a lot of system complications for me. Now everything seems to be running a bit smoother, but let's see if it can withstand a week without rebooting. 😀

Thanks for the response, (I love AT)

--Xg
 
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