my primary system:

866mhz P3 (was a 1.0ghz but it died and i just havent gotten another yet)
512mb PC133
ATI Radeon 9200 128mb AGP overclocked via ATiTool
120gb WDC 7200rpm 8mb cache ATA100 hdd w/ proper cable (partitioned into two equal drives)

why is it running so damn slow?!? my cousins 500mhz system runs better, also with xp pro. it takes forever to load after i type in my password, though there is no disk activity, it just sits there for a while. once in windows it runs okay but not as good as it should. things i have done:

-run and corrected errors with PC Bug Doctor
-run, corrected errors, and optimized with Registry Mechanic 5.0
-run complete system scans for viruses and spyware with ZA Internet Security Suite, Spybot-S&D, and Adaware SE, all of which had the latest updates. none of them found anything.
-run disk cleanup
-run Free Internet Eraser to clear IE caches and stuff
-run More Space to remove temproary files
-defragmented both hard drive partions
-run Memtest86 to make sure memory is good, it is perfect.

it continues to instist on sitting there for a matter of minutes beofre beginning to load the desktop and explorer. what is the deal??? i am about to break down and format it again! thanx!

Never try to teach a hog to sing. It frustrates you and aggravates the hog.

how many IDE devices? Is the HDD alone on the primary or paired up with another drive? were the motherboard chipset drivers installed?

Why all those different cleaning programs? Get the latest version of CCleaner & you can eliminate at least a couple of the ones you're using.

Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up Task Manager, then click on the Processes tab...then click on "User Name" at the top of the 2nd column to arrange the processes. Are there a lot associated with your name? If so, are they necessary? You don't need AIM, YPager, Nero, WinZip, printers, digital cam software, etc loading at startup. All you really need are taskmgr.exe, explorer.exe, antivirus...everything else can be started manually on an "as-needed" basis. Have you tried running MSCONFIG & disabling unnecessary programs from loading? (you can always turn them back on again)

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

i have not messed with msconfig but the hdd is just one (partitioned into two) and it is alone on its channel.

Never try to teach a hog to sing. It frustrates you and aggravates the hog.

Try a startup WITHOUT Zone alarm and see what happens. ZA is a good firewall but a comon complaint is that it slows the system down pretty good. I tried ZA on three different machines and it slowed down all of them quite noticably.

You should also see if you have a registry scan active on starup. One of the things it's doing when it sits there with no hd movement, is scanning the registry for errors and such.