Hey guys I have a 1.2 Athlon T-bird and lately a couple of my games have been running slow and it also lags when it boots up into the desktop. I ran scandisk and defrag and that didn't really do much. I have my HDD on its own IDE channel set as Primary Slave and My Burner and CD-ROM on their own IDE channel with the burner at secondary master and the CD-ROM at secondary slave. This couldn't have anything to do with performance could it?? Is it also possible to have an "incognito virus" that your system couldn't detect through methods of defraging, scandisk, and Norton? http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

Sorry I posted it in the wrong section...wasn't paying attention
[This message has been edited by ZeroCool (edited 07-27-2001).] http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

[This message has been edited by ZeroCool (edited 07-27-2001).]

Hey Zero,

The biggest culprit for systems that boot slow and run slow, is a whole load of programs running in the background and loading at startup. If you have TaskManager configured to do some sort of maintenance tasks, this can slow down the system. If you have anti-virus software running in the background, again, this will slow down the system. Another one is something like System Doctor from Norton, or 98's own system tracker running in the background.

Another one for slow booting is an NIC attached to the system.

A couple of things you could try:

1) Run MSCONFIG and disable anything you don't need to load at startup. You will want to leave Systray, TaskMonitor, LoadPowerProfile (maybe) and ScanReg enabled though.

2) Boot up as normal, but before you run any games, do the old three-finger salute, ONCE. (Ctrl,Alt,Del) You should see the Close Program window pop up. Highlight everything EXCEPT Explorer and SysTray and choose End Task.

Defragging on a regular basis will help, too.

I don't think your arrangement of the CD burner and CD-ROM would affect performance, but it's usually recommended to have the CD-ROM as master, with the burner as slave. I assume that you are using one or the other to play games? If so, you might try enabling DMA Transfers on one. If you enable it on one unit, the whole channel is enabled, thereby automatically enabling the other unit. Make sure that both units, as well as the motherboard, support bus mastering. (Same thing as DMA Transfers) You could also enable it for the harddrive, if the harddrive and system supports it.

If unsure how to go about any of the above, post back and someone can help you with it.

Edit: Um, why do you have the harddrive set as slave? Or, was that a typo?

Cheers,

Big Blue 66


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Woe is me.

[This message has been edited by BigBlue66 (edited 07-27-2001).]

I do not think it could hurt performance, but a single Hard drive should have jumpers set to neutral rather than master or slave. While I doubt that it has any effect, I have seen some strange results due to incorrect jumpers on IDE devices.

It is not likely, but could you have invoked DOS compatibility mode some how? Check via Control Panel, System, Performance Tab, & File System Button. While there, it is a good idea to tell the OS that the system is a file server. This causes no harm, and invokes better Disk Caching.

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Gouverneur
Eschew Obfuscation!
If one hundred million people believe a foolish idea, it is still a foolish idea.

Well, the reason why I have the HDD set as a slave is because when I had it set as a master, my computer wouldn't recognize it. (I have no idea why). Do you recommend I just leave it jumperless altogether?? And what is "NIC" and what is DMA mode?? Thanks for all the replies http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

NIC is a network card

DMA is Direct Memory Access...it can be set in the properties in Device manager.

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mjc
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Hey Zero,

Is your harddrive a Western Digital brand by any chance? If so, is it a fairly new one? If so, then you don't need any jumpers on it whatsoever, if it's the only IDE device on that channel. Not sure if having it set as slave would affect performance, but it would be best to remove all jumpers so that it's recognized as being in the master position.

If you have a network card but don't use it, you could remove it and its drivers for a little faster boot time.

Enabling DMA is fairly easy and is accomplished as MJC pointed out, in Device Manager. But first, let us know what your motherboard manual says about bus mastering, and if you have paperwork for your harddrives and CD units, check them and let us know what they say about bus mastering. Enabling DMA transfers, if you can, will enhance the speed of your system.

Post back with any questions you have and we can walk you through any of the above procedures.

Cheers,

BB 66


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Woe is me.