I built my computer myself, and it has been running just fine for a long time. It's a 1.7 GHz Intel Celeron running XP Pro. I'm using a Western Digital 40 GB Hard Drive which, until recently, was running in DMA Mode 4. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the computer started taking an exceedingly long time to shut itself down after I had told it to. Aside from that, there were no initial symptoms.
Next, when signing onto AIM, which is generally the first thing I do when I get into Windows, the log-on window would freeze temporarily, then continue through the three steps and sign me on. Aside from that, everything was running fine, even the UT2004 demo (in window and full screen, with AIM running) and the Hidden & Dangerous 2 demo.
Finally, I booted up a couple of days ago and clicked my quick launch icon for Internet Explorer and it took about 10 to 15 seconds to open the window. I found that very peculiar, so I tried to open some other applications and they were equally slow if not slower. My first thought was, "I am loaded up with ad-ware and spyware." I pulled out the big guns to no avail. Nothing. Not even any viruses. Then I tried defragmenting and fixing disk and registry errors. None of that worked. I tried closing down unnecessary processes, still thinking something was eating up my memory. Nothing still.
At this point, I started to think about the speed of my hard drive. I checked it, and it was still running in DMA mode 4. I tested the Hidden & Dangerous 2 Demo (which is fairly graphics intensive) to see if it would run smoothly, which it did once it FINALLY loaded.
I opened up msinfo32 and discovered that my DMA controller was sharing an I/O port with the PCI bus, which had lots of other I/O ports reserved as well. I have tried absolutely everything I can think of to wrestle that range of I/O ports away from my PCI bus. I have done everything from the smallest step of disabling my PCI devices to actually removing them and uninstalling the PCI bus drivers, ALL attempts ending in failure. I'm now not even sure if this is the problem, but it seems to me that it would be, and it is the only thing I can think of that would alter my performance so drastically (though I still don't know how the resource became shared and why performace degraded so gradually).
I have spent all day today trying to figure something out. The last thing I tried was to do a System Restore. I tried going back as far as early January and still the problem persists.
If anyone has any ideas on this one, PLEASE PLEASE lend me some brainpower. I can hardly use my computer, and I want to beat this damn bug. I'm just totally out of ideas.
Next, when signing onto AIM, which is generally the first thing I do when I get into Windows, the log-on window would freeze temporarily, then continue through the three steps and sign me on. Aside from that, everything was running fine, even the UT2004 demo (in window and full screen, with AIM running) and the Hidden & Dangerous 2 demo.
Finally, I booted up a couple of days ago and clicked my quick launch icon for Internet Explorer and it took about 10 to 15 seconds to open the window. I found that very peculiar, so I tried to open some other applications and they were equally slow if not slower. My first thought was, "I am loaded up with ad-ware and spyware." I pulled out the big guns to no avail. Nothing. Not even any viruses. Then I tried defragmenting and fixing disk and registry errors. None of that worked. I tried closing down unnecessary processes, still thinking something was eating up my memory. Nothing still.
At this point, I started to think about the speed of my hard drive. I checked it, and it was still running in DMA mode 4. I tested the Hidden & Dangerous 2 Demo (which is fairly graphics intensive) to see if it would run smoothly, which it did once it FINALLY loaded.
I opened up msinfo32 and discovered that my DMA controller was sharing an I/O port with the PCI bus, which had lots of other I/O ports reserved as well. I have tried absolutely everything I can think of to wrestle that range of I/O ports away from my PCI bus. I have done everything from the smallest step of disabling my PCI devices to actually removing them and uninstalling the PCI bus drivers, ALL attempts ending in failure. I'm now not even sure if this is the problem, but it seems to me that it would be, and it is the only thing I can think of that would alter my performance so drastically (though I still don't know how the resource became shared and why performace degraded so gradually).
I have spent all day today trying to figure something out. The last thing I tried was to do a System Restore. I tried going back as far as early January and still the problem persists.
If anyone has any ideas on this one, PLEASE PLEASE lend me some brainpower. I can hardly use my computer, and I want to beat this damn bug. I'm just totally out of ideas.
) I checked all my connections, and they are all solid. 
