System Incredibly Slow after Windows XP XP Home to Pro (SP2) Upgrade

[Temporary]

System Incredibly Slow after Windows XP Home to Professional (SP2) Upgrade

I just upgraded my system from Windows XP Home to XP Professional (SP2),
and my two IDE drives have dropped to 1/8-1/10 of their original speed.

I found an MS KB-842520 fix describing a buggy ATAPI.SYS driver, but
applying the hotfix and replacing the file with the SP1 version did not
help. I tried changing the IDE drivers to my motherboard's version (VIA),
but system would not boot. I tried disconnecting all but the one sytem
drive, but still slow. I have switched DMA on/off in BIOS and Device
Manager, to no avail.

I have verified the following:

o No extra software, adware, viruses, etc. running.
o Plenty of RAM (1GB).
o Plenty of free disk space (3/4 of the drive).
o Drive is not fragmented.

I have a Pentium 4 (2.53GHz), 1GB RAM, SOYO SY-P41845PE Lite MB, Maxtor
6Y120L0 (120GB) and Western Digital WD 800JB (80GB) Hard drives (both of
which run at 2-3 MB/s, instead of their usual 25-30MB/s.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

GHuston

 

[Shenan Stanley]

System Incredibly Slow after Windows XP Home to Professional (SP2)
Upgrade

I just upgraded my system from Windows XP Home to XP Professional
(SP2), and my two IDE drives have dropped to 1/8-1/10 of their
original speed.

I found an MS KB-842520 fix describing a buggy ATAPI.SYS driver, but
applying the hotfix and replacing the file with the SP1 version did
not help. I tried changing the IDE drivers to my motherboard's
version (VIA), but system would not boot. I tried disconnecting
all but the one sytem drive, but still slow. I have switched DMA
on/off in BIOS and Device Manager, to no avail.

I have verified the following:

o No extra software, adware, viruses, etc. running.
o Plenty of RAM (1GB).
o Plenty of free disk space (3/4 of the drive).
o Drive is not fragmented.

I have a Pentium 4 (2.53GHz), 1GB RAM, SOYO SY-P41845PE Lite MB,
Maxtor 6Y120L0 (120GB) and Western Digital WD 800JB (80GB) Hard
drives (both of which run at 2-3 MB/s, instead of their usual
25-30MB/s.

Anyone have any ideas?

Visit each hardware manufacturer's web page and go ahead and
download/install the latest drivers.
Particularly the motherboard chipset, video card, network card and sound
card.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

I am not sure what you mean when you say Drive is not fragmented? Did
you view the Report in Disk Defragment or accept the frequently
misleading statement "You do not need to fragment this volume"?
After any major system change you need to clean up the debris.

You should use Disk CleanUp regularly to Empty your Recycle Bin and
Remove Temporary Internet Files. Whenever you make system changes you
should always run Disk Defragmenter by selecting Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. If the green area on
your C drive is fragmented say so.

If you have a number of users logging a different procedure may be
more effective.

Have you checked the System and Application logs for Error / Warning
reports in Event Viewer?

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you
should double click for further information. You can copy using copy
and paste. Often the link will, however, say there is no further
information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event Viewer.
Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of the
message. This will paste the info from the Event Viewer Error Report.
Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from Event Viewer.

I would endorse the recommendation by Shenan. Everest may help you
with this task.

This freeware programme is excellent for getting information about
your computer:
Everest Home Edition (freeware)
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Tip: To copy select Report, Quick Report, Plain Text, highlight
required text, right click and select copy. However, whilst this is
fine for posting small amounts of information into newsgroup messages
longer reports will irritate other newsgroup subscribers.



--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Temporary]

Thanks for your suggestions;however, what finally seemed to fix my slow
hard-drives was disconnecting all but the single system (C drive (which
I had done before to no avail), and discovering that its speed was back
to normal.

I then reconnected my 2nd HD, then my two DVD drives -- one at a time --
and all drives then functioned normally, even after a reboot.

It is as if something needed to be reset (by the absence of the drives),
perhaps also combined with the replacement of the SP2 atapi.sys by the
SP1 version. I'm still confused, but at least it works.

Thanks again,

GHuston