Incredibly Slow Pentium 4

M

marylandman

Gawd
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
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hi, my friend recently brought his church friends pc to me to fix. i figured it was just a slow install of win xp since its a dell dimension 8200 and it uses RDRAM. However, this is far slower than any pc i have ever used in my life, including pentium 2's. I left the window disc in to reinstall XP, it took 10 hours to get out of the blue screen and into the colorful install window of win XP, then after an additional 8 hours, the estimated time remaining to complete the install was still at 39 minutes, which it starts out at. Specs are:
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
L1 Cache 8K @ 29MB/s
L2 Cache 512K @ 29MB/s
512MB RDRam FSB @ 100 mhz
Memtest keeps freezing. the blinking red + sign continues to blink however the WallTime only updates every four or five seconds as well. Is this normal for this processor? What could the issue be? Any help would be appreciated. This is one of the time when pro bono work is biting me in the ass with the amount of time im draining into this.
 
ya, there is something wrong with that machine. If the memory is bad find some used ones since new ones will cost an arm and a leg.

My sister had the same model Dell, and it took maybe a little over an hour to do the full windows XP install.

We got rid of it since the cost to upgrade to 2GB of ram was more than building another PC.
 
your best shot would be to go to the FS section of this board and post a WANTED ad for some RD RAM. i KNOW someone has at least a few 128MB sticks for an inexpensive price, or even a few 256MB sticks for a few $$ more.

If thats a no go, upgrade to a celeron 430 machine combo from MC, throw in a case with a power supply and HDD, and optical drives and youre done for $300.
 
AmongTheChosenX said:
If thats a no go, upgrade to a celeron 430 machine combo from MC, throw in a case with a power supply and HDD, and optical drives and youre done for $300.
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probably better off just getting a walmart $298 special
 
which RDram is it.. i have 2x256mb pc800 sticks.. remember with RDram it has to be 2 sticks.. RDram is dual channel only.. it would be hard to find RDram anywhere because it goes on Ebay for 100+ dollars a stick..

they are out of a dell 8100.. been sitting here collecting dust for about a year now.. p4 1.8ghz.. so if theres something out of it you need.. let me know because its just collecting dust..

also one thing id do.. is reset the bios.. ive had this issue with my old system.. where the bios would just corrupt its self.. its possible thats the issue.. doubtful but possible..
 
The hardware could just be going bad, its pretty old. I'd pull out anything attached to it and leave in the bare essentials (cd-rom, memory, hard drive) and then I'd test with one memory stick and see if it still lags just to diagnose where the failure is. If its the memory then just grab two new sticks and you should be good to go. It could be a number of things though with a machine that old (possibly the motherboard, CPU, power supply, etc), so you'll need to trouble shoot.
 
marylandman said:
hi, my friend recently brought his church friends pc to me to fix. i figured it was just a slow install of win xp since its a dell dimension 8200 and it uses RDRAM. However, this is far slower than any pc i have ever used in my life, including pentium 2's. I left the window disc in to reinstall XP, it took 10 hours to get out of the blue screen and into the colorful install window of win XP, then after an additional 8 hours, the estimated time remaining to complete the install was still at 39 minutes, which it starts out at. Specs are:
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
L1 Cache 8K @ 29MB/s
L2 Cache 512K @ 29MB/s
512MB RDRam FSB @ 100 mhz
Memtest keeps freezing. the blinking red + sign continues to blink however the WallTime only updates every four or five seconds as well. Is this normal for this processor? What could the issue be? Any help would be appreciated. This is one of the time when pro bono work is biting me in the ass with the amount of time im draining into this.
Click to expand...

From my experience, bad ram causes an installation of Windows to be slower than normal, prompt many errors that it can not read a file (press enter many times may eventually read the file) or just not install because it cannot read a file (no matter how many times I press enter or reload install media).

As for memtest freezing, I only remember that happening to me a few times with a particular stick of ram when I paired it with another working stick. It turned out that it was bad when tested it by itself.
 
Take the computer out and shoot it, or blow it up :D

You have bad ram, good lucky finding any rdram short of used, and best bet would be to get whatever 200-300 dollar special at wallmart/bestbuy/newegg, ect.

Modern dual core atom would be a faster system.
 
inotocracy said:
The hardware could just be going bad, its pretty old. I'd pull out anything attached to it and leave in the bare essentials (cd-rom, memory, hard drive) and then I'd test with one memory stick and see if it still lags just to diagnose where the failure is. If its the memory then just grab two new sticks and you should be good to go. It could be a number of things though with a machine that old (possibly the motherboard, CPU, power supply, etc), so you'll need to trouble shoot.
Click to expand...

i dont have any continuity RIMMs available
 
Is the machine full of dust or have the fans failed? I'm pretty sure the P4s throttle down when they get to hot, to the point where the machine becomes unusable like you described.

I've seen some C2D machines that were so clogged with dust and were getting so hot that even moving the mouse in windows was extremely lagged...clean it out and it runs fast again.
 
The problem could be RAM, it could be CPU, it could be motherboard. And since you are dealing with vintage parts here it may cost a bit more to find working test parts. Since the cost involved to troubleshoot the system is so high its probably time to tell your friend he needs to upgrade.
 
Could be harddrive, especially that old. try a spare harddrive (if you have one) and I bet that or the HD cable is to blame.
 
gwarren007 said:
Could be harddrive, especially that old. try a spare harddrive (if you have one) and I bet that or the HD cable is to blame.
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If he is having problems with memtest that pretty much rules out the harddrive as being the problem since memtest runs entirely in memory.
 
Is the IDE disk in dma mode or PIO mode?

If it's in PIO change it to DMA. Speed should increase significantly.
 
its just memtest is running slow, everything is incredibly slow. as i have said the Cache on the cpu is running at 29 MB/s. Its running like my old Barton 3200+ when i disabled all cache on it. the cpu is running full speed but the cache isnt. What could cause this? I've never ran into this issue before.
 
marylandman said:
its just memtest is running slow, everything is incredibly slow. as i have said the Cache on the cpu is running at 29 MB/s. Its running like my old Barton 3200+ when i disabled all cache on it. the cpu is running full speed but the cache isnt. What could cause this? I've never ran into this issue before.
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My apologies for misreading your post. It looks like your CPU or motherboard has reached the end of the line. If you have another CPU or motherboard you could test with you would be able to determine which one is causing the problem.
 
i would try a different hard drive to. since its not memory or dont think its a memory problem. maybe try something simple like change out the ribbon cable.......could be something as simple as that.
 
Tell them to ditch the computer and get somethign else.
Shameless plug. I've got an e2200 2GB ram, DVD-RW 80GB 7200RPM HDD (no OS) in case with antec 300W PSU I'm trying to get rid of for $100 if you happen to be in DFW area, $25 more and I'll ship it to you.
 
weuntouchable said:
My apologies for misreading your post. It looks like your CPU or motherboard has reached the end of the line. If you have another CPU or motherboard you could test with you would be able to determine which one is causing the problem.
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because dropping any money into this system would seem to be a waste to me. and a gamble. Gambling on whether its the motherboard or the processor. And I didnt get paid so i can't put any cash into it. I'm just going to tell my friend to tell the woman to buy a new system. And if she would like to buy one from me, I could put one together for her.
 
that would be the way to go.. but if she argues and wants the old one fixed.. let me know i have RDram and if you decide you want to test if its the ram.. i could send it your way so you can test the system to see if it really is the ram or not.. i know mine work.. theres 0 issues with them..
 
Pentium 4 was the work of the devil, and being so long in the church has pretty much weakened all its powers.
core 2 or AMD is much more wholesome.
 
Just tell them to buy a new computer, you can easily get one for less money that upgrading the current one.
 
"Incredibly slow Pentium 4" seems like a redundant statement nowadays. Seriously, it's a relic.
 
This is should not be an easy task to complete.

You've probably realized there might be one or more problems with more than one possible cause. Many of the problems just come with age. An old power supply, dust, wear, or just age could have damaged any number of components. Further, hard drives have a limited shelf life.


When trying to figure what's wrong here, you obviously want to minimize the risk to yourself whatever approach you take. Finding or borrowing a good working power supply for this computer would be the first step. My memory is foggy but I believe you need to make sure there is enough current on the 3.3v and 5v rails if you use a modern power supply.


With a solid power supply comes the next step which is testing by substituting as many components as you can one-by-one without having to go out and purchase hardware. You risk damage to the hardware you are using to test. I, myself, would take the risk.


What you don't want to do is take the parts out and test them on your own pc. It would be more time-consuming and riskier and less useful if there were more than one problem.


Start by giving the computer a nice cleaning and leave any nonessential components like the floppy drive, modems, sound card, or ethernet card disconnected. Check for overheating and leave the case doors open. Keep the case well-ventilated. A standing fan is good for this.


Subsituting parts

There are two components I would try. The first is the CD drive. The second is the hard drive. If you have a pci video card lying around, that would be nice, too. If you can test all of these components and the problem still exists then you have it narrowed down to the CPU, MOBO, or MEMORY. Chances are good the motherboard is the first one to crap out this last group. You could probably make a decision to scrap or replace at that point depending on what you find.


In any case, good luck!
 
The chipset on the motherboard is bad. I've seen ONE other Dell system that acted the same exact way.

Everything just ran extremely slow. Replaced the motherboard and all was well.
 
im guessing the mobo's caps dont look great either. Probably from running for what, 8 years or so, with a horrible power supply.
 
i would try what others mentioned about heat. We have slim P4 dell machines for kiosks at work. If they get hung up with a frozen background IE window or some flash animation the chip gets hot quick and throttles down to a crawl. If you've been around long enough in Pentium1 or P2 times and ever disabled the internal CPU cache and felt how slow things got.. Them this feels just like that when the P4 goes into throttle down mode.
 
Oh man, this could be anything. It could be RAM, mobo, IDE controller, PSU, CPU... you name it. I definitely think that it's not worth fixing, given the ass-backwardness of RDRAM. If I were you I'd offer to build them a new comp... if you're anything like me you could put SOMETHING together for less than $50-100, and migrate all their files and everything.
 
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