New computer is slowing down

[Millertime]

Here's what I know is in the tray.

nVidia Settings
McAfee Virus Scanner
Safely Remove Hardware (for my external drives)
LAN 2 (limited or no connectivity)
Windows Live Messenger (not always running)
yPops (allows pop access for Yahoo mail)
Webroot Spy Sweeper
Logitech Wireless desktop
Earthlink internet connection
iTunes
XP firewall is also enabled

I also have Firefox and Thunderbird running most of the time. My old Win 2k system with 1 GB ram would run for weeks at a time without any system slowdown with all of these programs running.

Millertime

[Max_87]

Hm... try closing the nVIDIA tray thing? One of my friend was having similar problems and the nVIDIA tray was the culprit.

[Millertime]

Closing the nVidia settings task did not make a noticable difference. Any other ideas?

Using file search with explorer will cause even greater problems. If I have explorer open and run a number of file searches I'll eventually hit a point where explorer stops responding and I have to close explorer in task manager. This messes with the task bar and really slows things down even more.

Thanks for the help so far.
Millertime

[Max_87]

Sounds like a bad WinXP installation to me. Is it possible for you to do a fresh install of WinXP on the system now? I seriously doubt its your hardware that is causing all the trouble.

[Millertime]

Originally Posted by Max_87

Sounds like a bad WinXP installation to me. Is it possible for you to do a fresh install of WinXP on the system now? I seriously doubt its your hardware that is causing all the trouble.

That's the feeling I've had, my system just hasn't felt quite right from the beginning. I haven't used XP before so I thought maybe it was that much different from Win 2K. I was hoping it wasn't the hardware because I tried selecting components that had good ratings and would work good together. I'd hate to start bastardizing it and swapping parts chasing an elusize problem.

What would be the best way to go about reinstalling XP? Do I need to format the drive and repartition or is there a different method?

Millertime

[Millertime]

I really screwed up. I tried reinstalling XP using the upgrade option and now all I get is a blue screen with the following stop message.

STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x8050BFF6, 0xF78EAA8C, 0xF78EA788)

It dumps memory contents to hard drive and then reboots, goes back into setup and runs partway through "Installing Devices" then hits the blue screen.

And of course there's data on my hard drive that I neglected to backup because I thought that this reinstallation would be a piece of cake.

Please help, I don't have a clue on what I should do now.
Millertime

[Chai]

I'm not sure if upgrading and reinstalling is the same thing, but I always use the reinstall option, which doesn't remove the data in the hdd.

Try booting the CD, and use the repair option (not repair console). See if it works.

[Millertime]

I use the reovery option and then after a few steps I end up at the Recovery Console where it asks which installation to log onto and the administrator password. When I enter the password it sends me to a dos prompt at c:\windows. What do I do?

[Dashken]

Get your harddisk backup through a friend's PC or something onto a DVD, etc. Then do a clean format and Windows installation. That would heal your headache.

[Millertime]

Originally Posted by Dashken

Get your harddisk backup through a friend's PC or something onto a DVD, etc. Then do a clean format and Windows installation. That would heal your headache.

That's what I was thinking. I have a Win2K system as my second computer, will I have any problems putting the hd on that computer and backing up what I need or do I have to use an XP system?

Another question about the headache I'm having. Could that stop message possibly be because by a bad memory module?

Thanks,
Millertime