Joe T

Funny you mentioned that. I had a similar problem when I first purchased this computer which BTW is Dell Dimension 4500 running XP w/ Pentium 4 2.0 ghz & 768 megs RAM (yeah yeah I know I should boost it up the max the motherboard will hold at 1 gig Ram, but all in due time B) ). Anyway I had an issue with the BIOS so I found an update online, flashed the BIOS and everything seemed to work fine except it took like 10 min to boot-up. Once everything booted up (usually i was a year older by that time )it ran fine. I found the problem to be the same. The caching (or lack there of) was a HUGE difference, and I kick myself for "dealing" with the issue for so long after that rather then investigating it and fixing it sooner.

^^ you are absolutely right. Microsoft Windows updates are netorious for causing issues including the famous Device manager disappearing act and the "it takes 10 minutes for "My computer" to show up. But I must say, out of all fixes and updates, spyware and malware removals I have done on this computer, this fix has been the most dramatic change of them all.

First of all you guys ROCK!.. I had the same problem... just wanted to give my input because I had tried everything and now my computer is 100%!!! Back to its "like new" condition... Make sure that your primary IDE is not in PIO mode. PIO mode is "programmed input-output mode". That is the mode (used on original computers) in which the CPU takes each command line-by-line, or word-by-word. Your IDE should be in DMA or Ultra DMA mode which stands for Direct Memory Access. This mode allows a DMA controller to process many commands and frees up valuable computing time to the CPU.. 1) Goto Control Panel 2) Open up System 3) Goto Device Manager 4) Goto IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers 5) Double-click on Primary IDE 6) Click on the "Advanced Settings" tab 7) Make sure that "Transfer mode" is set to "DMA if Available" (if you can change it) 8) If "Current Transfer Mode" is set to PIO Only, Go back to Device manager and right-click on Primary IDE and uninstall the device. 9) Restart the computer, the hardware wizard will then display "New hardware found..... IDE controller... the Primary IDE controller. 10) Go back to Device Manager and check, you should not be in DMA or Ultra DMA mode 5 (or 6). My computer now takes less then 20 seconds to boot up when it use to take over 5 minutes... Good luck to you!! If you have any questions my email address is : Joe4alb@hotmail.com B)