Ive just got a new hard drive-120GIG (7200 rpm, UltraDMA100), using with 512 MB DDR RAM (PC2100), and 1.4GIG athlon processor running at 133MHZ FSB. The computer has recently been running slow, which shouldn't be happening with the above. I have ran defragement, but still no faster. Any ideas?

Try downloading the utility call Sandra. You can run benchmarks on disk,memory & processor performance, among others. Also will suggest performance improvements. As far as the new drive is concerned, make sure that you have DMA enabled. http://www.sisoftware.net/sandra/

I would do what OtheHill Suggest about seeing whether DMA is enabled. You do this by going into the "Device Manager" and then to your HD properties.

Also, I have a feeling it could be Windows 98. There's been advice by where more memory is actually a bad thing, if you had say 1024MB, Windows would just function badly. Windows 98 was made intent of only support 512MB max (which is what you have). There should be a patch available on Microsoft's site. That may help fix the problem.

When you say your computer runs slow. Can you explain that more specifically?

Example..
1. Low HD performance??
2. Low 3D performance??
3. Low benchmark scores??
4. Long Boot up??

Before you bring in a specific problem, then we can help you out.

Thanks for your replies. In answer to TMP-Man's question, Itn is the general processing of the computer that is slow (maybe hard drive-which is DMA enabled), but mainly exploring around windows-when opening loads of folders one after the other, the computer eventually takes about 5 secs to open a folder.

Is the whole 120GB one partition? I was going to state that partitioning the drive would improve access time, but 5 seconds is way too long. Something is wrong. Boot to safe mode and check in device manager for multiple instances of IDE controllers and that you have a primary controller, secondary controller and a busmastering controller. Also make sure that there is only one set of controllers. Multiples won't show up in regular windows. Only safe mode. Check all other devices as well for the same. See example below.

Hard disk controllers Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
SiS 5513 Dual PCI IDE Controller

John
Also boot to the BIOS and see how that drive is configured there.

Hey OthHill. I have exactly what you show as an example. I have often wondered about it, too. This is a new (for me) mobo and cpu, so I figured it was normal. What should I/we do, just delete one or more? My system is slow, too, but then who's isn't? I figured it was just the nature of the beast.

Thanks.

No, what I showed was a good configuration. IDE has two channels. If you have more than one IDE device you should have both channel enabled in your BIOS. If yours looks like what a used as an example then it's OK. What I meant by multiple instances would be if you had those same three lines more than once for the HD controllers. Other problem would be not to have the third item listed at all. Seems like you OK there. Did you check for DMA enabled. Device manager> Disk drives> Your Hdrive> properties> settings> check DMA. In the BIOS on the first screen are your drive settings. They are probably set to Auto. If you highlight the first drive and toggle off of auto, either it will go to disable or theother way will highlight the actual settings. What you are looking for is the mode. Should be over to the far right. Don't change anything there, just look, then set back to Auto. Mode should be 4 or 5. Download and run benchmarks on Sandra. It will compare with similar systems so you know where you stand. After you try all that post back again.

Ok, so it's a hard drive problem. Here is something you can do.

1. Defrag the hard drive.
2. Scandisk
3. Make sure you don't have any spyware or advertising software installed on your system. You can press ctrl+alt+del to end suspicious software. EG. Spyware.dll.
4. If you have virus scan program installed, try to disable it and see if it helps. Sometimes if you enable the virus scan to scan everything on your hard drive. It will start scanning as soon as your hard drive stay active. Eg. opening a folder, saving files, copy... etc
5. Do a full scan of virus if you have to see if your comp got infected by virus.
6. Press ctrl+alt+del and make sure your system is not running out of RAM. This could caused by massive of programs running at background.

I hope this helps

to OtheHill.

Sorry I took so long; trying to get a mortgage setup. I have DMA set and it's running in mode 5, so looks like everything is normal, per your example. It would be nice to find some 'secret' configuration that would turn my system into a hot rod. (short of overclocking, I mean) Thanks for the aid, and I will download Sandra, again, and run it every now and then.