Mega PC problem! Geniuses only!

[notoaaz]

Hey all,

Basically the other day I brought a new case for my pc, because the cpu kept over heating blah blah but before the case swap it worked perfectly.
After I put everything into the new case, but now my pc is going so slow. If im using a download client like I-tunes everything goes so slowly and I cant even play music files because they skip and jump, thing is if i turn I-tunes or bitcomet off the pc works perfectly.
I thought that maybe it was because they are memory hogs, so I downloaded microtorrent and even that has the same effect.
I monitored the CPU usage and when you put on an audio file it justs up to 30%. Whereas it was around 1-2% before. This happens even when the pc makes a noise in general.
I talked to the guy that sold me the case and he took the whole pc in for testing and said it was working 100% and he reckons he done hardware and software checks and it was all ok. He laid the blame on Norton Internet security. I know Norton slows a pc down, but I was running it before and the pc was perfect.
I formatted the pc and reinstalled windows and it still had this problem.
A friend of mine said it could be the IDE drivers, I checked them and one is running PIO and the other Ultra DMA, I investigated this and found the solution, but it did nothing so Im not sure if this is the problem.
My PC specs are:
P4 3.1ghz
Ram: DDR 1gb
2 Harddrives: 1 is 40gb the other is 150gb

Thanks for reading any help would be awesome thanks in advance.

Notoaaz

[Koolpc]

Could very well be the hard drives mate. Have you de-fragged them lately? Also, which drive is set as master?

[Tom]

Did you remove the heatsink/CPU from the motherboard? If so I'd hope that you re-applied any thermal paste, and properly fitted those components back into the system.

As that could be overheating (and P4's just slow up when they get hot ;) ) ..

If the PSU was changed, has the new one got enough juice to run everything? You'd probably get instability rather than poor performance if it wasn't, but stranger things have happened at sea.

Run something like memtest yourself and see if that produces any errors.

[Cosmo_1847]

yeah if you did take the heatsink off you MUST put thermal paste on it. my CPU doesn't over heat anymore and now my computer is running faster bacause of that.

defragment the hard drive and down load a unlitiy tool from the hard drive maker to check that the drives are ok.

[notoaaz]

Yeah I recently replaced the PSU and I have already reapplied the heat sink gel so thats all good. I'll run a defrag tonight but wouldnt that have already been done when I formated?

[UbT]

Hmm did you format or did you just re-install windows? if you just reinstalled windows that could be why? do a complete format :)

[notoaaz]

Yeah I done a complete Reformat of the system. And I have just left memtest on all night and its saying there areno errors. I cant think what is wrong :( might format the whole system again :(

[Douche Bag]

whats startup like? if it s a new psu, what make? and was it el cheapo?

[Arc]

I checked them and one is running PIO and the other Ultra DMA, I investigated this and found the solution, but it did nothing so Im not sure if this is the problem.

2 Harddrives: 1 is 40gb the other is 150gb


This is screaming out to me that there is a problem somewhere. What DMA mode are the drives now running in? (On any modern PC you want DMA on, trust me).

Other point, what controllers are the two hard drives (and dvd/cd drive) connected to? Do you have the proper 80 pin IDE leads and are they connected the right way around, e.g. blue to motherboard, black to master, grey to slave?

[dave-lew99]

Somthing simple:

Did you re-plug all your drives and cards back in the same connectors (ie. 2nd master from old case is 2nd master in the new one etc, sound card was in PCI1 its still in PCI1)

Sounds to me like you've moved things around and windows has got confused - but doing a format should sort that....erm............installed sound and graphics drivers properly? (can cause major cpu useage)

[notoaaz]

Thanks Ill try out all the suggestions, ill keep u posted