[Solved] System is ssslllooowww

I just built a computer using a core2duo E4700, intel 945GCNL mobo, 2gb ddr2 ram, 450 watt power supply, 160gb 7200 rpm harddrive. Running WinXP home. This thing is slow. My pentium 4 smokes this thing. Any suggestions on what to look foror how to find out what the problem is? This thing should be smoking fast. Even trying to browse the net hurts. Firefox, opera, IE all the same. Excel, word, Windows media player all slow as hell too. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Bios is updated, no compatibility issues. Instal went without a hitch. No problems with build. 1st boot went without a hitch.

i have no crapware installed(assume you mean mal/spyware)
no viruses
new harddrive(this is the second one I'm trying, as it did the same with my other harddrive)
don't know how to tell if I have a mobo driver issue. Will check if you can guide me how to do it
thx

only startup items are avg,zonealarm,adaware. Graphics card is Radeon 9250. drivers installed. Winxp home legit. fully updated, running IE7, did not update to ie8. Usually use to rip cd/dvd's, do spme song editing, pic editing, such as photoshop, watch videos

It is better than what I had (Dell 2400 P4 2.4ghz)

Also, have 2 hd's. 160gb is primary one.

IDE hard drives or SATA?

System is just slow. Did a fresh install about 2 months ago and was ok. Progressively slowed since then. First install did same thing.

Try cpu-z too while you are at it and make sure everything is running the right speed.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Just check that the processor and memory are at the right speed.

Memory type-ddr2
size 2048mb
dram freq 332.5mhz
fsbram 3.5
CL 5.0 clocks
tRCD 5 clocks
tRP 5 clocks
tRAS 15 clocks
tRC 21 clocks

CPu
clocks (core#0)
core speed 2593.7mhz
multiplier x13.0
bus speed 199.5mhz
Rated fsb 798.0 mhz

Cache
L1 data 2x32bytes
L1 inst 2x32 bytes
level 2 2048kbytes

Ok cpu-z looks right. Try HD Tune.

should there not be core 0 and core 1 listed in cpu-z?

At the bottom right of the CPU tab it says Cores......should be 2

Those HD speeds are slow as hell. I have an old Seagate SATA 1.5 160gb drive on mine that shouldnt be MUCH faster than what you have.....
Minimum 28.2
Max 58.8
Avg 45.5
Access 12.8
Burst 88.6
CPU -1.2 lol

I think that HD is having issues. what does the Health page say?

Health says status ok
anything in particular?
spin retry count is highlighted yellow

Yeah so is mine on that Seagate. I dont know...you run an error scan?

Just to compare my 2 WD Black 640s in RAID 0

Minimum 90.3
Max 211.5
Avg 177.4
Access 7.8 <----matters most
burst 139.1
cpu -1

Actually its 7 times faster .

should it be supporting 48 bit address? 160 does, but 80gb doesnt

ran the benchmark on 80gb hd
transfer rate
min 12.7mb
max 26.5mb
avg 18.6mb
access time 13.9ms
burst 26.7mb
cpu usage 18.8%

See? That 5200rpm thing is almost as fast as the 7200rpm one........weird. I dont know, SMART will usually tell if one is dying.

Is there a way to run SMART?

SMART is just an interface letting programs ( also BIOS...it has to be enabled there) like HD tune see errors and such. When you run HD tune the info in the Health tab is SMART reporting.

Ok this is not the fix but I just thought of it......My computer/right click drive/properties.....try an error check there/defrag there/enable write caching if its not.

You can also turn off system restore to increase speed but I dont really reccommend it.

Good luck!

How do I tell which ribbon I am using?

I had the 40 wire ribbon. Replaced it with the 80 wire and that did the trick, or at least it sure helped. Thanks for yours and everyone else's help. It is really appreciated!