Asus P4S8x-x is slow as

[Paul]

Hi all, anyone else have this mobo??

For some reason lately, this other PC which has
an Asus P4S8x-x is pretty damn slow loading and loading
programs.

I doubt if it's the ram, its got 1 GB installed.

I use Trojan remover, Norton AV 2003 (which is up to date),
and XoftSpy. None of these programs pick up any nasties, in
XP or in Safe Mode.

I've done a Hijackthis scan, and everything looks clean to me.

Nothing nasty in the system. I've also defragged
recently. And it's still slow as. Anyone out there using the same mobo,
and having the same prob? Slowness?

 

[Paul]

Hi all, anyone else have this mobo??

For some reason lately, this other PC which has
an Asus P4S8x-x is pretty damn slow loading and loading
programs.

I doubt if it's the ram, its got 1 GB installed.

I use Trojan remover, Norton AV 2003 (which is up to date),
and XoftSpy. None of these programs pick up any nasties, in
XP or in Safe Mode.

I've done a Hijackthis scan, and everything looks clean to me.

Nothing nasty in the system. I've also defragged
recently. And it's still slow as. Anyone out there using the same mobo,
and having the same prob? Slowness?

Windows will automatically "downshift" the disk drive interface,
if Windows detects CRC errors while accessing the drive. Eventually
you will end up in PIO mode, and be stuck with 4MB/sec transfer
rate and high CPU usage.

See the bottom of this page for a workaround to fix it:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

Make sure you have a backup of the disk. Perhaps clone the disk
to a second disk, then use the disk drive manufacturer's test
program to test the suspect disk. If it fails the manuf.
drive fitness test, you may want to use the disk drive
product warranty.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Paul]

Ta Paul. Will check out that site

Cheers

Windows will automatically "downshift" the disk drive interface,
if Windows detects CRC errors while accessing the drive. Eventually
you will end up in PIO mode, and be stuck with 4MB/sec transfer
rate and high CPU usage.

See the bottom of this page for a workaround to fix it:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

Make sure you have a backup of the disk. Perhaps clone the disk
to a second disk, then use the disk drive manufacturer's test
program to test the suspect disk. If it fails the manuf.
drive fitness test, you may want to use the disk drive
product warranty.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Paul]

I've just checked device manager on it.

BOTH (there's 2 hdd's in the system, and both are on DMA 5).

Neither are on PIO Mode.

 

[Paul]

I've just checked device manager on it.

BOTH (there's 2 hdd's in the system, and both are on DMA 5).

Neither are on PIO Mode.

My crystal ball gets pretty hazy, if that wasn't the problem.
I would use Task Manager (control-alt-delete) to watch what
is running on the system, and sucking up cycles. If could be
you'll get lucky, and find something running on there that should
not be there.

Just for kicks, find a hard drive benchmarking program, and
bench the drives. If you see full speed performance in the
benchmark, at least that will tell you it is not hardware.
If you only get 4MB/sec, then suspect hardware.

If your problem is just during program launch, then something
is wedging the OS. Sorry I don't know of any tools that can
help track down the culprit - using Task Manager and then
searching for each task listed in a search engine, would
be hours of work, and doesn't guarantee you'll find the
problem.

As I'm not a believer in "reinstalling everything", that is
the very last thing I would recommend trying. (Mainly,
because you'll never know what the problem is, and could
end up with the problem again very soon.)

Things that can sap a system:

1) "indexing", where the OS prepares a database to aid in
finding stuff. You'd see steady grinding if that was
happening.

2) If you have a large directory of movies, explorer might
decide to read entire movie files, to figure out their
vital statistics.

3) We also had a recent case, where a large directory of
ZIP files slowed down a system. That was because the OS
is actually looking inside each ZIP file, exposing the
file contents. Disabling that function sped up the system.

Paul

 

[Paul]

Ah ok Paul ta for the info.

I'm pretty sure its nothing nasty. I booted into safe mode
the other day. Ran Trojan remover, Xoftspy, Nortons AV scan.

And cleaned out all the temp files with ccleaner.

I'm pretty aware of nasty things these days, like trojans/viruses.

And also installed/ran Hijackthis in normal XP and safe mode.

Looks all clean to me... In the HJT log.

Yesterday it seemed to load things a bit faster. I defragged
again. Seemed to speed things up once again.

I use Powerarchiver, so XP's built in ZIP thing isnt used.

I guess indexing can be turned off. I've heard this is a waste of space!

I've killed XP's cd burning off. I use Nero for most things. I used to
use DirectCD/CD Creator, but it kept on giving me coasters with XP
SP2. So, it went in the bin!

Yup, reinstalling is my last OPTION at the mo!

Umm even tho the P4S8x-x has been running fine for the last year
with DDR400 ram, the mobo doesn't actually say it suports DDR400
ram.

In the manual, its only got PC1600/2100/2700.

I only noticed this the other day, when I read the manual!

If the ram was the prob, (if the mobo couldnt handle DDR400),
it would have played up earlier wouldn't it??

Thanx again!

Cheers