Hey,

Specs: 3.0ghz P4 800fsb with HT enabled.
512 PC3200 RAm
Windows XP Home
80 Gig 8mb cache 7200rpm hd
40 Gig 2mb cache 7200rpm hd
Samsung DVD player drive
ASUS P4P800 (intel 865 chipset)

Issue: Question about ESD and OS performance. When people talk about ESD static damamge , does ESD have anything to do with Windows XP or any OS performance? or are they talking about whether or not a system posts, turns on or not? I get confused with that.
I work on my PC always with a strap, in a small area without a rug, but the rest of the room is rugged, there is a sofa very close to my PC with blankets pillows and whatnot in the room. Also there is a TV about 5 feet across from the PC. As I stated I use the ESD strap and I keep a hand on the computer case at all times. Am I doing my best to keep from damaging this PC? Does a room with a softa, a rug, a TV, pose as a hazard to a PC being worked on even if one has the ESD strap on. In the immediate area I stand when working on the PC, the floor is tiled.

In conclusion, the point of this message post is that I am trying to figure out if there is a driver or hardware issue. I am using XP and I installed the Dlink wireless nic which prompted may saying it is not digitally signed and was not tested by MS, and recommended I do not install the hardware. I only get a "hint" of lag in my PC. I know it can be faster because my 2.4 ghz toshiba just as fast as this 3.0 ghz pc and shows a bit less lag. Is the lag in my PC because of ESD, or can it be because of the wireless NIC I installed that is not digitally signed? Can it be an IRQ conflict.
If anyone can answer these questions, thanks alot. Sorry for the long message post.

I can 100% honestly tell you the problem does not lie with ESD, if you had an ESD issue, something would probably be fried.

You seem to me to be doing enough to protect against ESD, just make sure you don't shuffle across the rug and touch the system and do touch another metal object before working so you can discharge yourself of any electricity you might be carrying.

Now, as far as the digital signatures go, you are usually safe installing hardware or software that hasn't been digitally signed. All it is is that Microsoft allows a product to be "digitally signed", or certified to work fully with XP.

If software or hardware does not have this signature, it simply means the maker of the product has not submitted it to Microsoft for their full testing. But the maker usually tests the product out on an OS to make sure it does work.

I am not informed enough about wireless to be totally certain about your lag, but I don't think a very small lag in speed has anything to do with an IRQ or other conflict, it probably means that it just isn't using its full potential, much like broadband or dial-up.

All can be faster, but there are regulations made by the FCC and individual internet providers regarding spped and use of such technology. It could also just be the network you connect to has its normal slowdowns at times when it is very busy. Again, I don't know a lot about it so I'd stick in here awhile and wait for a more knowledgeable person to come along.

Hope I've helped some.

I had the wonderful experience of dealing with the first wave of consumer-grade wireless G PCI adapters because some clients just didn't want to wait... and it seemed that almost ALL of the cards came with unwanted side-effects.

This may not be your issue, but I learned to stay away from Belkin, D-Link, and even Linksys G PCI adapters. They would work fine on most chipsets, but on others they'd do anything from lagging PCI bus mastering to disappearing from the Device Manager to corrupting OS system files.

Low-end cards have gotten much better, but I'd still go with the Netgear WG311 out of the whole bunch. They tend to work reliably on almost any chipset, and they can be used with XP's Zero Config utility.

Yea I am pretty much taking every precaution I can. May I should turn off the TURBO option on the RAM speed in the BIOS. That could be making my system unstable. I think unstable is a better word to describe than lag.

Did you ever resolve your issue? I am having a similar issue with my dlink card and wireless router. I am using a DWL-650+. I have one in my dell running win2k and it works GREAT. My wife is running the same card in her compaq laptop with windows XP home. I am having similar problems with the card in her laptop (performance is slow to nonexistent, connection constantly dropped).

If you have resolved your issue, please let me know what you did to do it. I am getting ready to put a parallel install of win2k on her laptop to isolate XP. Anyway, thanks for any help you can give.