annoyingly slow!? why!?

hey,

i have built wat it hink is a pretty powerful pc as you can see from the specs. However the speed has greatly disapointed me! for starters i cannot run the computer with a FSB of 133 cause it comes up with a STOP message before loading windows so i am running at about 124 (amd xp 2000+) kinda speed. This doesnt bother me loads but i find that its really slow to do things ont he computer.

Even if its loading internet explorer while im playing a game for example. Or deleting files - it will stall for a while, and its just generally slow, how can i speed it up!?

thanks for your time

jonny

You're right- with that hardware, your PC should be pretty fast!

Two things to try- first, ditch that TNT card as soon as you can. Not only is it slow as heck for modern 3D games, it does not do the world's best 2D either. You'll see faster, smoother scrolling of windows and a sharper, less fuzzy picture onscreen if you upgrade your vid card. You can get a GF4 MX for less than $80 these days, which will 0wn your TNT in every way possible.

Second thing is to reinstall your OS. A sluggish computer is almost always caused by an incorrect windows setting, or simply a bogged down OS.

What OS do you use, and how long has it been since you formatted your system drive and reinstalled your OS?

As for the stop message you see at 133mhz FSB- that is a weird one. I would blame your RAM- double check to make sure it is set to the least aggressive timings, most cheap RAM will not handle CAS2 at high speeds but will work at the same speed at CAS2.5. Try slowing it down in your BIOS.

The kt3's are famous for not going to 133 right out of the box. First I would reset the cmos. If you need help with this tell me, but it sounds like you know enough to do this. Also load the latest bios from msi. You could also post this in the motherboard section if you have not already. You can find a more specific answer there most of the time.

its only been a couple of weeks since i formated and installed windows 2000.

I am currently, re setting the HSF and also re-applying the thermal grease.

my RAM is stuff froma component shop at PC World. its 256MB PC2100 DDR - 184 pin 266Mhz DIMM.


n e ting else?

thanks

jonny

Hmm, i agree with resetting ur comos. What are ur temps at? And it might be ur ram.

Have you checked the fsb jumper (don't know if that m/b has one) . My epox wouldn't start at 133 (wouldn't start at all lol) when the jumper was set for 100.

you may have a dying hard drive. Any strange noises or excessive HD activity? Try running a couple of hard drive benches in Sandra or some other HD Bench program. If they're slower than they should be, get a diagnostic utility from the HD manufacturer (downloadable from their website) and back up all irreplaceabel data!