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Seemingly Random Occurance; Need Help

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Vipasnipa

Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2002
Location
Salem, OR
This is a very general hardware question because I really can't figure out whats wrong with my rig (see sig). While being somewhat subjective, my rig is being noticebly sluggish after a fresh, clean install of windows XP. I did an install using the same exact CD and procedure two months eariler and everything worked like a charm. Now I have all sorts of problems; firstly, my harddisk activity light is a solid red now, even when my drive is not active. I've done the install on both my new Sammy SATA and my older Maxtor drives, with the other not plugged in, so it can't be a HD deal. Another thing I did was run a Sandra test. A typical system like mine doing the Dhrystone test is supposed to get around 9,000 MIPS, but my system is only pulling around 900 with a 3.0 P4-C? Also, games which ran silky smooth on past installs now have a constant lagging effect that I can't chalk up to my video card. I'll now explain EVERYTHING that has happened to this rig since it was in its happy state until now.

It all began with Starforce, that virus-like copy protection system which installs hidden device drivers on your PC (google it). The problem is that when you uninstall a game, the drivers stay. Of course, being the power use that I am, I wanted them gone. So I went to great lengths, which eventualy lead my machine to be in a state of unbootablity, hanging on the windows boot screen. I tried everything; every safe mode, etc, but always hanging on boot. So I did the recovery console through my XP disc, disabling services, etc, no go. So the fateful decision to reinstall windows.

I don't know why I decided to do the Repair function, because in all previous experinces, it blows. I tried to do the install-XP-on-top-of-your-broken one in the past, and it resulted in an explainably slow environment, and I got the exact same thing this time. To hell with this I thought; so I moved all my files over to some IDE disks and decided to do a clean install - one which would take a strangely long amount of time then what I was used to.

Now in the past, when I did fresh installs on the system, the boot screen would be up for nothing more then 5-10 seconds. Now it's closer to 40-60 seconds. There are also some strange things that happen before the "welcome" screen comes up. First, the screen is somewhat black, like the video card is working and outputing but it just doesn't have anything to output. Then the monitor shutsoff with its power saver feature, because the video card stopped outputting the signal. So 30 secs more of waiting yields the "welcome" screen, which lasts another ungodly ammount of time. One thing that is important to mention is that once the windows desktop finaly comes up, there isn't any further loading, it is immediately available (so I wouldn't blame this to files hoging the bootup time, esp. since there are no programs installed for this fresh install (excluding drivers).

Now, I've been lurking and posting in these forums for quite some time, so I did all the usual tricks: Chipset drivers from CD installed, new version from net installed, older versions, etc. Same with video card drivers, old new and archived ones. Nothing. So now I do the "eliminate the hardware" deal by removing unecessary items; TV tuner, audio card, IDE drives, optical drivers, disabling features in the bios like on-board LAN, usb, advanced features, etc. Setting everything to default for voltage, blah blah blah (My AGP volts were upped slightly for OCing).

And this is where I am. Completely ****ed off because now I think the problem is either my CPU or my mobo, and I have no way of testing this. You've read this far,so PLEASE PLEASE provide any insight or help you can. I've always considered myself computer savvy, but this is just driving me insane.

EDIT: Some things to note: My RAM hasn't been OC'ed past the default 333mhz for months. The temp sensor for my CPU is also screwy, as it presents completely unbelievable temperatures (like 30C while playing a game, with the basic stupid Intel HSF on). What else... I haven't noticed anything wrong with my PSU - it seems to be operating fine from what the BIOS tells me, but I could deffinately be wrong.
 
Run prime95 to test for stability. Do it at stock so if it fails you can suspect the CPU. If it doesn't fail try running memtest. I suppose it's quite possible that it's your memory. And finally I wonder if it was maybe just a bad install of XP... now this would suck because I know ther'es only so many installs of XP that you get but I suppose it could happen.
 
I've done a total of 5 installs, twice with XP Pro that I got through a school program that I have used flawlessly in the past, and three times with XP Home that I bought (upgrade sp1a version) that I have once again used flawlessly in the past.
 
You need to format the boot area of the disk..Crap i forget how..Format/C:/MBR

Something to that effect,Using a floppy from a win 98 install..OR get the disk tool that will allow a low level format of the drive from the disk makers web site..That will write zeros to the entire disk and destroy the master boot record as well..
 
I would propably prefer an unconditional format "format c: /u"
After it is done, a windows install format.

//Christian
 
I'm trying to figure out how to get my hands on a bootable CD-image that has the format tools on it, as my rig has a boot-able CD drive but no floppy.
 
ACK. Just found-out the hard way that the win98 boot disk won't help because the drive I need to format is an SATA drive... Any other ideas?
 
Cant you use the disk utility from the maker of your drive ? ? ?
 
I couldn't find anything from Samsung (maker of my SATA) and the controler access they have during the boot process doesn't have anything for formating, only setting up RAIDs.

*edit* Could I possibly run my IDE drive XP installation and get a program that can do a low-level format of my SATA drive?
 
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When you install XP, it gives you the option of what partition to install onto (assuming you have multiple partitions). When you installed, did you delete all the partitions, then recreate them? I have found that this has helped me in the past with a very similar problem. Also, the disk you are using for install is a factory CD, not one you created and slipstreamed SP1 or SP2 into, right?

Another thing to try, is make sure all your ram is seated. Try taking it out and reseating it. Sounds funny.. but stranger things have happened to me.

How hot do your hard drives get? Heat can slow them down some.

Do you have CPU throtteling turned on in your BIOS? IIR you don't want this option enabled (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

If I think of anything else.. I'll post..

Lee
 
At the suggestion of a Tech I know, I flashed my BIOS up to the latest version (2nd time I've flashed it). And, viola, my rig is back to its old perky self again. What's strange about this is that I had previously installed windows from the same CD to the same disk drive two months ago without any problems. Why would the problem crop up later? Thanks everyone for the help.
 
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