Computer is running choppy.. any suggestions?

Dep. McGuire

New Member
I have a Dell Desktop P4 3.0ghz 2.0 gb ddr2 ram nvidia geforce 7600gt 40 gb hdd for the OS and a 120gb hdd for everything else. Computer was running Great but i wanted to get 1 bigger hdd instead of 2 and thats were i started to run into problems. My mother board had a couple blown capacitors so i decided to replace it. I replaced the mother board with a Gigabyte ultra dual bios S2 series motherboard. I used all my existing internals except I replaced the the 2 hdds with a WD 7200 320gb. I noticed when i was loading windows 7 it got to the loading screen and it took like 10 to 15 minutes to start the install which it only took a minute or two with my old setup. after installing windows everything thing seemed to be working ok. I installed a few programs and noticed while the programs were running my computer was slow!:mad: mouse was chopping and laggy across the screen, and they were programs that were win 7 compatible and did not use alot of memory or cpu usage. I then tried youtube to watch a video to make sure my sound drivers were installed and the video was lagging bad. These are basic programs and operations that a p 2 could handle why can't mine? All drivers are up to date. Sorry for the long post but wanted to be as specific as possible.. any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. :D
 
. I noticed when i was loading windows 7 it got to the loading screen and it took like 10 to 15 minutes to start the install which it only took a minute or two with my old setup. after installing windows everything thing seemed to be working ok.

Pentium 4 is a pretty old CPU.

Are you sure that Windows 7 can run on Pentium 4? I wanted to try it on my old PC - but I didn't have a DVD drive on my P4 computer. Was it working fine before exchanging the MOBO?

How many GB or DDR RAM do you have
 
I noticed when i was loading windows 7 it got to the loading screen and it took like 10 to 15 minutes to start the install which it only took a minute or two with my old setup.

Assuming yo mean during the setup, I think it's more of a fluke with Windows. I had the exact same problem with my i7 920...

My guess is, as also mentioned here, your CPU is getting too old for this. While other problems my exist, Windows 7 is a rather intensive OS and really requires a fairly hefty computer to run it smoothly. I suspect one of your main draw backs i the lack of duel core...
 
Yea i know its getting old...i have 2 gb of ram.. My next step was to probably go with a
core 2 duo 2.66 or faster preferably. The thing that confused me though is that windows 7 loaded fine on my dell with the old motherboard. With this new motherboard and hdd it took awhile to load.. So I was hoping it wasn't another underlying problem. Could it be a compatibility issue with the old processor and new motherboard? I guess after i get an updated processor my computer will basically new :)
 
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my pentium 4 runs windows 7 ultimate no problems its an old northwood on 478,
runs it will all the full fat features of aero and nothing turned to low
never had any problems with it, performs substantially better than vista did for me boots quite quick, id alos say if i benchmarked it against xp, say both on a fresh install to make it fair (and free of the normal windows clutter any spyware virus etc), win 7 would be substantially better.

big difference with OP tho my pc was custom built and not a dell so that may be why it performs better, but i had to give my old p4 some credit.
 
Strange.... All of your components check out fine? No skipping HDD beats? Sounds like the problem is arising from too much processes at once.

You should try and start up task manager just to see what you are running.
I believe the Pentium is pretty fast on just about any ATX. I am running a Pentium on my custom made computer board and it is surprisingly fast with processes. Have you checked your GUI devices? I know your drivers are up to date, but what about missing pins?

My Vista Inspiron was horribly, but by analyzing my HDD I could clear about 9 GB and even stop some unneeded programs from launching. My system ceased to load any slower than it did after I defraged and ran Boot time.

Still, how strange. You would think the Ge force would aid a bit with your lagging issue.

Try turning off some features.

I hope this helps you solve your issue or at least get closer to a solid answer.
 
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