Pentium 4 running waaay too slow

[UF Jspec]

My friend is having computer problems and was hoping you'd have some insight. First of all, he tried loading XP unsuccessfully about 4 times. He'd get a STOP error most likely due to the hardware. I moved the RAM to a different slot and XP loaded fine (for now). But now it runs so slowly. He has a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz. I looked in the BIOS and it says Processor Clock Frequency is 133Mhz. Is this thing running at 133 or is that the BUS speed? That is too slow for the BUS speed too I think. But I cannot change the setting because it says locked on the same menu screen. Any ideas?

I hope to get the mobo type later today.

 

[mechBgon]

Sounds like the CPU is overheating. Pentium4's will throttle back to a crawl in an effort to keep themselves alive. Possible causes: heatsink not fully latched down or fan not running (easy to check). Good luck!

 

[DimZiE]

try disabling APIC in the BIOS and reinstall (your system would hung up if you changed this setting without reinstallation)

or just like mechBgon said check the temps .... and make sure the CPU is not throttling down

since P4 used a quad bus system (four data BUS for the system 133x4 =532 MHz)
i think that's the right freq setting for the CPU older P4 used 100x4 data bus =400 Mhz

my P4 system only throttles down on temps above 60 C ( most mobo's allowed you to set up at what temps the cpu is starting to throttle down)
hope that helps

 

[Elvis2]

I moved the RAM to a different slot and XP loaded fine (for now

How much ram does he have?

 

[UF Jspec]

He had his L2 cache disabled, duh! Thanks guys.

 

[mechBgon]

There's a new one. Well, gj on the troubleshooting