Serious performance issues...

[otho]

Alright, here's the deal. I just built my first Athlon system about a month ago and I am having some serious performance issues. The symtoms include, very long load times (my celeron 400 loads Windows in less than half of the time), audio anomolies (static sounds, skipping and popping while loading, etc, etc...), and odd system instabilities. Keep in mind that the symptoms carry through to games as well as in the Windows environment. It seems as if every time it loads something, it devotes 100% of it's attention to loading it and nothing to anything else. When this happens, games will just stop, seemingly locked up, until the loading is complete. Sometimes it loads for no reason. However, when it's not loading or doing whatever on the hard drive, it runs smoothly. I currently have it overclocked to 992, but dropping it back to default settings does not help.

Here's what's in it---
"Classic" Athlon 800
Abit KA7
128mb MicronPC133 Athlon tested ram
15gb Maxtor ATA66 5400 rpm
10gb Western Digital ATA66 7200 rpm
Creative TNT2 Ultra Video w/ TV out
SB Live! Value
Sony 48x CD-ROM:
No network card is installed
300w Athlon approved Enlight power supply

OS & Drivers----
Windows 2000 Professional With Service Pack 1 and all updates
All device drivers are current and compatible with Win2k, no conflicts detected

At first I suspected the hard drives, so I tested them with spanking new ATA66 cables and there was no change. I also tested them in my Celeron 400 system and they preformed just fine so, at this point, i am begining to suspect the motherboard. I also tested the RAM in my frend's Celeron II 566 and it ran beautifully. I have been building systems for over 5 years now, and I have not seen anything like this before. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Rendus]

Sounds to me like DMA isn't enabled... Even my IBM 75GXPs would peg the processor at 100% and only do 4mbytes/sec until I enabled DMA.

I have no idea how to do this in Win2k.

 

[sun818]

There is a setting in Win2k workstation/server that provides priority access to Foreground applications or Background Services first. It sounds like Foreground Applications may be enabled. I suggest switching to Background Services and see what results you get.

Good luck.

 

[AC]

make sure your live! card (and tnt2 card?) isn't sharing irqs with anything, usb's irq included

device manager will not report these as conflicts

 

[CapNjacK]

I agree with Rendus check on your DMA settings <properties for the HD channel in Device manager>(just in case) Also make sure you have the VIA all in one drivers installed. (agp, ide etc...) I'm a tech also so try to remember when a good tech has problems its usually something small and stupid he over-looked thats why we always cough up the same crappy advice. Even the best need reminders!