Computer help wanted.

[OldStokie]

Ok guys....this is my question.

I have a pc with a 40 gig hard drive as my master drive. The lead to that comes off a slot, goes into it and then the lead then goes on to my cd rewriter. I have another slot alongside that one and the lead from it goes on to the cd drive. I also have another lead coming from a different part of the motherboard which goes to my floppy drive. I am running Windows 98 and have Symantec firewall and anti virus configures on the pc. I am running a ddr sytem.

I have a number of problems.


1) Although I am running with 512 mb of ram, this system seems very slow. [I bought a second user pc for my daughter saturday and its 3 times quicker than mine with the identical processor [Athlon 1700] in it. That has an almost identical set of drives to mine but the rewriter also plays dvd's. It doesn't have Norton in it though and is running Windows Millenium.

2) I am getting startup problems and shut down problems. Sometimes, it changes the video driver to a basic windows one and I have to reload the right one in. Other times it gets to particular places as windows is booting and then freezes up and won't go any further. Yes, I have reloaded windows but it still does it. I have tried to use the windows startup troubleshooter but as soon as I click on 'will not boot' or 'will not shut down', it goes to the next screen which always comes up blank.

3) Because of all these problems, I want to add a second hard drive [8 Gig] to act as my backup drive. How do I add that and where do I put it in the list of connections as I've described them. I've configured it as a slave drive with the jumpers out and put it between the slot which the cd uses. I've used the midle connection of that lead. It won't work and won't boot.

4) Although I 'alt-ctrl-del' all the running programs, when I load in Nero for the burning rom, it still causes loads of conflicts and I am rarely able to burn discs as the program freezes far too often. It's a pain in the butt.

Any sensible suggestions will help.

Ta guys.

OS.

[StuttgartStokie]

OS, I'd give some serious consideration to installing either Windows 2000 or XP. There is pretty much no need to have 98 running with the speed and memory size of your system. As you won't gain anything cause its pretty much a 16 bit operating system. Also its a lot harder to figure out why the system is running slow, cause it won't tell you which apps are using the most memory and which apps are running. Task manager in 2000/XP will give you all the answers.

1) If you've had your system up and running a while the registry will be pretty big and full of crap which can slow your PC down.

2) It seems like there is a problem with either you Graphic Card Drivers or your graphics card. I'd go with the former, do you what graphics card you have. Try going on their website and downloading and installing the latest drivers.

3) Check in the bios when the computer is booting that the hard disk is recognized there. The bios settings may need changing so that it is recognized.

4) Your registry might be corrupt in some way, which is preventing the computer from booting properly and apps working properly

Checkout this link for scanning and fixing the reg.


support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;184023

I would give some serious consideration to upgrading your OS though. And doing a clean install.

[AlbertTatlock]

Here you go Oldcliquey.

Good advice from SS, you could always search on google for a free program called Regcleaner and it will clean your registry getting rid of all the unnecessary files.

If I was building your PC (and I have built several hundred) I would put your 2 cd roms on the same IDE cable rather than have one linked to your hard drive.

I would avoid a clean install though unless it was absolutely unavoidable. You can do an upgrade install and not lose any of your data. I would recommend Windows XP. And update it very frequently!!

If you are running any of the win 98 genre of operating systems they will need cleaning up and defragging at least once a month, this will give you a marked increase in performance.

Also bear in mind that the more programs installed on your PC will have affected the running speed especially if they initiate on start up.

One more thing AMD Athlon based machines do not run at the speed they are named after a Athlon 1700+ will run at approx 1400mhz and are no where near as good as Intel based machines for multi tasking.

Hope this helps.

Gouranga.

[lurcherthelurker]

Mick, I'd go along with the other two, but will say avoid 2000 and go straight to XP.

Would also have both HD's on the same cable as Bert has mentioned.

One other bit of advice, the floppy drive is not where you put the prozac

[OldStokie]

Thanks SS and Albert - and Rex [I've only just seen your comments after I replied] Good on yer. I've taken all that in and will digest it.

Right, now listen to this!

I bought this pc new two years ago and wouldn't question its pedigree. It came from a reputable dealer, Jal Computors.

So, being the nosey old cliquey bugger I am and I don't give in to anything, I decided to get out my motherboard book to see if I could clock the processor without help. I read it through and it said that the main IDE slot should be used for the master hard drive. Also, it said....DO NOT CONNECT THE CD TO THE SAME IDE SOCKET AS THE MASTER DRIVE AS IT WOULD LEAD TO THE HARD DRIVE PERFORMANCE BEING REDUCED.

So, I checked and sure enough, the lead from the main IDE slot led to the hard drive but it WAS ALSO COUPLED TO THE CD ROM DRIVE. I took out the lead from the cd rom drive and used the other IDE slot to link to that but I have left the cd rewriter disconnected. [I'll sort that out later.]

I rebooted and lo and behold, the pc works much faster!

Now, I'll couple the other hard disc to the same cable that is used by the main hard drive and configure the jumpers for it to be a slave to the main drive.

I am also beginning to suspect that the cd rewriter is faulty. I'll let you know how I go on.

Any more info on the correct way to link these devices would also be appreciated.

What should I do with Jal Computors!

OS.

[ParaPsych]

Well I could have fooking told you that, if I had read this earlier.

[seth]

Also worth doing the simple stuff like defragmenting your hard drive.

[AlbertTatlock]

Old Cliquey, that’s what I suggested you do, you should also have a spare connection on both your IDE ribbons to connect 2 devices to each so you should be able to have 2 CD or DVD roms and 2 hard drives, thus Both Hard drives should be connected to IDE 0 and both CD or DVD drives should be connected to IDE 1.

The easiest way to find out if your CDRW is faulty is to try to burn a CD on it make sure your software supports your writer, if you have the software that was supplied with it use that, if you are not sure how to read up on it. In general CD writers are very reliable. And don’t forget that if you connect it back up to re-set the jumpers to secondary master and secondary slave I would use the writer as the slave.

There is always the option of fitting a Raid card so that you can use extra devices.

Upgrade to Windows XP and very importantly make sure as I said earlier that you do a dick clean up and defrag.

Jal Computers are one of the better PC suppliers in the area but anyone can make simple mistakes don’t worry too much about this simple one.

Gouranga.

[oldstokiesson]

Twotlock and PC together

OSS

[OldStokie]

Seth....I defrag regularly and do a monthly full scandisk too. That takes a whole day almost. I'm what you would describe as an 'intermediate' pc bod so I am aware of most of the basics.

Right, found out what the problem is. The CD Rewriter is knackered so now i'm running a simple system of one drive off each IDE connection. Main drive is on IDE 0 and the CD Rom is attached to IDE 1. After doing this, the system has speeded up. I intend now to buy a new CD Rewriter and will use that on the same cable as the CD Rom. I'll follow your advice Albert and have the Rewriter as the master by setting the jumpers to that position and change the CD Rom to the slave.

I don't want to run XP because that will mean that I will have to buy a new scanner and possibly a printer. Definitely, the scanner won't work with XP. So, I'll leave it that now and thank you for your advice.

OS.

[AlbertTatlock]

Old Cliquey try here for your new CDRW good quality and a good price and only down the road from you.

www.overclockers.co.uk/

Gouranga.