P4 1.4, brand new HD, 36hours to install XP, 50% proc usage idle - wtf is going on?

[bigsexychris]

computer specs:
P4 1.4 (first release)
4x128mb pc800 samsung rdram
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L080P0 80GB (IDE)
some unmarked Dell mobo from 2001ish

Alright, this is an old dell computer that hasn't been used in about 6 months

To revive it, I bought the new Maxtor drive because the old HD has had physical errors for awhile (it was still usable though) that I just didn't want to deal with.

So, I put the Maxtor as the only HD on its own IDE channel and formatted two partitions - 20gb and 60gb (both NTFS)

I began installing XP and the strangest thing happened - the installation literally took around 36 hours. I'm on another computer right next to the dell and i've watched the chronically wrong "time left" counter count down.

A couple hours ago, I finally made it to a nice fresh installed desktop, but everything was running excruciatingly slowly. I checked the task manager and the processor idles at ~48% usage. I haven't installed anything, I haven't even run a program other than windows explorer to make sure both partitions were there (they were).

I've installed XP dozens of times on a dozen computers, but I've never seen anything like it. Has anyone seen this before?
Could it be the processor/mobo/HD/power supply/ram??

 

[eLiu]

Does the new drive have any errors/problems?

 

[bigsexychris]

it formatted fine.. i'm going to throw it in another computer real quick - do you have any tests to recommend once it's in?

 

[bigsexychris]

pre-sleep bump

 

[EKKC]

what processes are running? if you go to task manager and go to Processes and make sure that it shows all users tasks you should be able to tell which process is taking up your resource, try ending that instance and see if your pc runs faster

 

[bigsexychris]

whichever process is in front takes up the cpu - with taskmanager (taskmgr.exe) open, taskmgr uses ~50%, i've killed explorer, but no luck :-/ memory usage is normal, if not much lower than normal (about 56mb PF idle).

 

[SilentRunning]

PIO mode instead of DMA mode?
40 wire cable instead of 80 wire?

 

[Bozo Galora]

so, run HDTach

 

[vegetation]

Sounds like something wrong with the drive controller and/or bad ram. I suggest this based upon your mention of your former disk having 'physical errors'. I see a correlation here.

 

[superbooga]

Make sure the heatsink and fan on the CPU are ok.

 

[farmercal]

The last time I had a problem loading an Operating System (Win XP Pro), it was bad memory that caused the problem. Took out bad memory and OS loaded just fine. Good Luck

 

[0roo0roo]

if its the controller, u can get another. i used to buy silicon image pci ata133 controllers for 20 bucks off ebay.. no idea if they are still that price