O/S Running slower than a snail, Why?

[Aelene]

I am working on a Dell 8200 Dimension Series right now that is loaded
w/ Windows XP Home edition. 256MB, 1.9Ghz. The original problem it
came to me with was a complaint of slowness. The end party was not
interested in saving anything on the actual hard drive so I didn't
bother troubleshooting any original software issues.

I started by using the reinstallation disk and trying a repair on
Windows. That did not work, and the repair took hours upon hours to
complete. Next step, I wiped out the HD and re-partitioned/formatted
then reinstalled Windows XP again, and again the install took hours to
complete. The end result is the same each time, it will finish out the
install and it does not error out at all, if you wait it out it will
finish the install successfully and boot up to the O/S. My original
conclusion was that it was likely there was a bad sector on the hard
drive which was causing it to write data at such a slow rate.

We ordered a new HD, however once it came in the install process has
not changed at all, it is still taking hours to complete it. I have
changed out the IDE cable and have even switched the RAM to different
modules to see if maybe those things are having issues. Neither of
those things have worked.

Anyone have any idea what could be causing this? It's obviously a
hardware problem, but I'm not quite sure what. I need some one that is
smarter than me!

[Rich Barry]

Aelene, I would try the cdrom drive on the Secondary IDE channel by itself
as Master. The hard drive by itself as Master
on the Primary IDE channel. Can you try a different cdrom drive? Is the
WinXP CD a retail Version. Good shape?
"Aelene" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>I am working on a Dell 8200 Dimension Series right now that is loaded
> w/ Windows XP Home edition. 256MB, 1.9Ghz. The original problem it
> came to me with was a complaint of slowness. The end party was not
> interested in saving anything on the actual hard drive so I didn't
> bother troubleshooting any original software issues.
>
> I started by using the reinstallation disk and trying a repair on
> Windows. That did not work, and the repair took hours upon hours to
> complete. Next step, I wiped out the HD and re-partitioned/formatted
> then reinstalled Windows XP again, and again the install took hours to
> complete. The end result is the same each time, it will finish out the
> install and it does not error out at all, if you wait it out it will
> finish the install successfully and boot up to the O/S. My original
> conclusion was that it was likely there was a bad sector on the hard
> drive which was causing it to write data at such a slow rate.
>
> We ordered a new HD, however once it came in the install process has
> not changed at all, it is still taking hours to complete it. I have
> changed out the IDE cable and have even switched the RAM to different
> modules to see if maybe those things are having issues. Neither of
> those things have worked.
>
> Anyone have any idea what could be causing this? It's obviously a
> hardware problem, but I'm not quite sure what. I need some one that is
> smarter than me!
>

[Aelene]

Well, I don't think the CD is in question, because this was an issue
before the reinstall CD even became involved. It is, however, a
reinstallation CD from DELL.

Could the CD-ROM still be a contending issue if the machine behaves the
same way once it's logged into the O/S? The install from yesterday
actually finished out but once logged into the desktop, the performance
is the same. It takes approx 5 minutes to get from the black Windows
XP Home screen (during bootup) just to get to the actual desktop with
start/task bar options.

Would the CD-ROM only be an issue if it was just during the install
process only?