Explorer.exe eats 30-50% of our CPU cycles

We just got a new Intel 3.06 GHz system (barebones, from eBay [Biostar P4TDP board, 512 MB memory]), and moved the drives from an old 600 MHz Dell to the new system. After running Win2K Pro install in repair mode (to fix the registery entries and eliminate the BSOD), and re-applying SP3 and the pre-SP4 hotfixes, we are getting SLOWER execution times that we got on the Dell system.

Looking at Task Manager, we can see that "explorer.exe" is eating 30-50% of the CPU cycles. With nothing running except the services and Task Manager itself.

This has been reported as a problem with XP (after SP1), but we've found no reports of this problem on Win2K Pro.

There was one suggestion that re-installing the graphics and IDE drivers might help, but it didn't help us.

Another suggested rolling back one of the hotfixes, but you can't take one out of the middle of the set without breaking the system.

Do any of you have any other suggestions?

 

do I read that you have installed an old O/S and HDD's from another machine?

 

Yes, that's correct.

I think I may have found the problem: After moving the drives to the new computer, you get an "Inaccessible Boot Drive" message, and have to run Setup in repair mode. During the repair process, the network adapter is re-installed without removing the old adapter entries from the registry.

(According to a KB article [can't find number, sorry], you have to "repair" using the exact same source and method -- e.g., CD-ROM, unattended, etc. -- that you originally used to avoid the problem of multiple adapter entries.

I finally noticed the multiple adapters, and disabled the extra ones. (Device Manager won't let me remove them.)

Anyhow, things are working a somewhat faster now, but I think that there are still a few configuration problems.

 

Problem solved - Was bad motherboard

Sorry folks,

An incorrect motherboard had been installed in the system, so the BIOS was quite confused. (Actually, I'm supprised it ran at all!)

Anyhow, we repaced the board with one designed for the 3.06 GHz processor, and everything seems to be running as expected.

 

Thanks for the follow-up post Peter.