Help! Unit will not recognise hard drive

[frige]

I have a home made unit from a couple of years ago that while old I dont want to dump just yet. I posted on here a while back about this machine. At the time it was acting funny freezing up running real slow at times also when you go to add remove programs in the control panel it would never populate the list. After tring everything virus programs etc I formated the hard drive. It was a western digital and it promptly died. So after reading the reviews I got a seagate 300 gig.

Reloaded windows xp pro. Dang thing acts almost the same takes forever to populate the add remove program screen but finally does. And get this when I try to check my email it will not show the text just a big blank page. Also I have a 2nd western digital hd that has all my music on it. If I click on it the machine tries to format it. That one was working fine before I formated and installed the new hd.

Specs: dfi board with amd athlon 3200 plus processor, 2) 512 memory sticks, antec 350 watt power supply, 24 bit sound blaster card, xfx video card etc.

[Zylstra]

After getting your new drive, did you install Antivirus and Antispyware/adware?

What happened prior to the slowing down? Anything in particular?

[unlovedwarrior]

how is your motherboard is it in good shape? what about the cable connecting the hhd to the motherboard??

[patio]

If you had errors on the install it may have dropped the HDD back into PIO mode which is really slow....this can be checked in Control Panel by right clicking IDE1 and checking properties.

[frige]

Yes I installed defender pro antivirus and anti spy. I am using the windows firewall. I am not sure how to check the mother board but it is a good quality board and has some nice cables that came with it. I do have extras maybe I could change them to be sure. I will checkthe ide1 when I get home.

[unlovedwarrior]

go to the manufacture of the motherboard and of the harddrive and download the diagnostic tools for each  and burn them to cds and run them

[frige]

I ran a memory test and it came back with errors. So I pulled one stcik out and rechecked. The same I traded sticks and still the same. The read me file said that this would point to the motherboard as the culprit. Also it is getting worse now there are dotted line running across the screen. Its not the monitor because they move when you change screens.

So if I replace the motherboard what would be a good choice? This unit is mostly just used for surfing the net and I just bought a new power supply so I dont want to start over with a duel processor. I found a ton of new boards on Ebay. But I probably want a new processor also......

[GX1_Man]

go to the manufacture of the motherboard and of the harddrive and download the diagnostic tools for each  and burn them to cds and run them

Don't spend too much time looking for motherboard diagnostic CD's. There aren't any. 

[Zylstra]

Frige:
You might as well get a new computer.
But if you wanted to, www.newegg.com has great Mother Board replacements, and new CPU's
Just be sure to find one that fits in your current case, since if it doesn't, there isnt much you can do.

[GX1_Man]

Giving up quickly there aren't you Zylstra?

Have you tested the RAM and hard drive yet? Free diagnostics are available. 

[patio]

If you had errors on the install it may have dropped the HDD back into PIO mode which is really slow....this can be checked in Control Panel by right clicking IDE1 and checking properties.

And did you ever happen to check this out ? ?