Name: MarknotMike Date: May 5, 2006 at 16:15:55 Pacific Subject: Poor performance on brand new PC OS: Windows XP CPU/Ram: P4 3.0GHz, 1Gb
Comment:
I recently helped a friend assemble a new PC. The system boots up very slowly, and when sound plays on the speakers, it constantly stutters very quickly. Also, the motion of the mouse across the screen is jerky, like something is using up system performance. This all occured before a connection to the internet, and persisted after updating all drivers and running Windows Update. What more can I check, and what is the likely cuprit? Is a faulty on-board sound card possibly causing this? The specs are as follows: -ASUS P5GD2-X Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 915P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail -Intel Pentium 4 630 Prescott 800MHz FSB LGA 775 EM64T Processor Model BX80547PG3000F - Retail -CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory -Ultra ATA 160Gb WD Hard drive - ATI Radeon x300 PCI Express video card.
If you were having all these problems right from the start, why did you continue installing programs & logging on to the internet to run Windows Update?
Are you 100% sure all the hardware was installed correctly? RAM was tested with memtest86? Power supply is up to the task? The BIOS was properly tweaked (especially the RAM settings) & not simply set to defaults?
Considering the choice of video cards, you're obviously not planning on gaming with it...lol
Press ctrl+alt+det and open task manager, is there any program that uses up 90% or more CPU utilization besides "system idle process"? If so, then that specific program use more than 90% CPU is causing the problem, if not, then it could be related to driver problems... Go to device manager in system properties and see if there is any "!" mark in the hardware profiles, if yes then you need to update or install the correct driver for that specific hardware. If not then I would suspect that it's mostly hardware related...
TMP-Man
Asus P5P800-SE P4 506 2.66Ghz @ 4100Mhz 1.525v Thermaltake CLP0024 w/ 2000RPM FAN 1024MB DC Corsair DDR400 40GB 5400RPM/120GB 7200RPM HD 128MB Radoen 9500 mod 9700 @ 360/585
He obviously bought the PC to be a functional computer that can do light gaming and saved money by buying an old socket.
Make sure everything in your BIOS is properly tweaked, as jam says. Conflicting timings or improper settings will eat away at performance all-around.
Also, you mention it takes forever to boot up. Describe how it boots. Does it take lots of time at POST or looking for IDE drives? Is there a lot of hard drive activity, or does it sit there for long periods seemingly doing nothing? More detail would be appreciated.
