Computer booting/running sloooow

[fudgam]

MSI 945P
Pentium D 2.8
2 x 512 Corsair XMS DDR2 667
X850xt

A little history:

Last year I got a virus, removed it, and my computer had booted up slow ever since. It would run fine otherwise, so I did not really care.

A couple days ago, I shut my computer down for the night (which is rare, I usually just leave it on all the time). When I turned it on in the morning, the Windows loading/boot screen would just play over and over until it eventually went to a blue screen where it said something like "could not locate bla bla bla in startup. Dumping physical memory".
I let it run for about an hour but the screen never went away. I rebooted again and got into windows but it took SOOO long to finish startup and then it was running VERY slow and bogged down. No errors, no "illegal operations" or crashes. Just SLOOOOOW.

So I formatted my hard drive and I'm running a fresh install of Windows XP Pro. My computer is still running terribly slow.

I had my processor running at a modest overclock of 14.0 x 215 mhz for the longest time and it ran fine otherwise with no heat issues. I have since put it back to default. (ram was always run at default)

I thought a stick of ram might be bad, so I tried running my computer with each stick individually but that didnt help at all. I suppose both sticks could be bad so I am going to run memtest all night and will post the results in the morning.

Any ideas or suggestions for diagnosing this problem is appreciated.
Thanks

[Thrax]

Ailing hard drive.

http://icrontic.com/articles/hard_drive_diagnostics

[Esso]

Check in the bios menu (or in windows), that the cpu is running at correct speed.

My ASUS P4 mobo started after reboot, suddenly to trottle down the CPU from 3.06 GHz to 2 GHz.
I found out that the dip switches on the mobo was having a bad contact, giving false readings.
So I moved the CPU swithes to on/off position a couple of times, to remove the oxide.

Have you installed the ...

Intel 945 chipset driver (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=2115&DwnldID=14529&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional&lang=eng).
Make sure it is for chipset i945P.


Windows XP SP3 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=75ed934c-8423-4386-ad98-36b124a720aa&DisplayLang=en).


After testing the HDD, then test the memory using memtest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/download.html), (Use the bootable floppy version)

Also when installing the WinXP, use the "long" format selection.
It will test the installation partition.


Tips,
To speed up the Win-XP boot time, in the Start->Run, execute this command,

rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks


When called from the command line, the ProcessIdleTasks work is done in the background asynchronously.
It can take 10 to 15 minutes for idle tasks to complete.
Task Manager will report processes running, and the disk will likely be active during this time.


Ref,
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/benchmark.mspx

[fudgam]

Thanks for the tips. I'll try all the hard drive diagnostics.

Memtest:
I let it run for 9 hrs 25 min.
Passed 30 tests with 0 errors

Looks like my ram is fine.

[fudgam]

I could not get Drive Fitness Test to boot.

I got the Western Digital Diagnostic Tool. Ran the quick test and it failed in about 4 seconds.

Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 1 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 65 (Error Log Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 1!

I guess it is time to order a new Hard Drive.

[Thrax]

Bad sectors. :( Sorry mate.

[fudgam]

Good call on the hard drive diagnosis.

When I get the hard drive and get it installed I'll post on how my computer runs.

Thanks for the help and speedy replies.

[fudgam]

I have the new hard drive installed and my computer is running great now!

Thanks Again.