Windows installs slow, computer runs slow

My son was given a Dell Optiplex GX1...Specs as follows:

Intel pentium 3 500mhz

256 sdram

ati rage - on board

I bought a used 13g hard drive and tried to install Windows xp.....It took 3 to 4 hours just to copy the system files....

Thought it might be the cd drive, used another one...Same problem....

Change the cables on both the hard drive and cd drive....no difference...

Put the hard drive on my computer and windows installed beautifully....

Put it back in my sons computer, reformatted, still super slow but after the systems files were copied, 3hrs later, got a blue screen saying windows detected a problem and is shutting down....The problem seems to be caused by the file FRAMBUF....

Decided to try to install Win 98se....Super slow again....it says 241 minutes to install and it did take that long....

Ok then disabled the ATI video and put in TNT2 m64 card....Installed the drivers....No difference....

This computer run so slow that no one would ever want to use it....

I'm stuck now and don't know what else to do....

Any help would be so appreciated as I'm sooo frustrated.....

JBH

 

Hi JBH

Seems to be...
Ruled out: CD drive
Ruled out: harddrive
NOT ruled out: motherboard/system.

I would download and run the diagnostic utilities of the harddrive manufacturer. The drive may not be being set correctly by the BIOS.

There may be a problem with the partitioning of the drive. You may want to try making two partitions of 7.99Gb and 5.01Gb in case it has some sort of size limitation at 8Gb.

It will most probably be because it is a Dell and they want you to use the Dell installation/recovery/setup CD, rather than a retail version of Windows

Matt

 

Try replacing the cable with an 80 conductor IDE one that is less then 18 inches long. On older machines and Windows XP it will enable UDMA on the 40 conductor cable and it will be slow. Your newer PC should have the better cable.