Computer help forum: formating help please

i made this thread http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6122_102-575182/rip-my-hair-out-slow-computer/?messageId=5381587&tag=msg5380887;replyPopup


then replied this here post to it but it said no more replies are allowed.


My 'new' PC's way worse than the other.You can kind of skip the whole thread if you haven't read it and start here if you want to help.

It's a Sony Vaio PCV-RX651 80G HD, 256MB ram, 1.72ghz running XP.

The previous owner left XP SP2 on it. I basically just went to add/remove and saw tons of bells and whistles, tool bars, etc, stress tested

explorer and IE, and it ran decent, like 10x better than the other PC I made this thread about. Of course I wanted to fully reformat it to get the most performance out of it though.

Next, I did 14 passes with DBAN with the computer case open and a fan on the components and left it for a day untill it fininshed. Once wiped, I turned it off for an hour before formatting XP. Forums say DBAN can't damage hardware though.

The XP CDs I install from are sort of unknown burnt copies but legal with licenses and keys etc, but I was told they're just universal XP

CDs. Again, as already said in this thread, I've had them say something like "file not found. Retry?" I hit Retry, and it continues. I had no errors like that from all the formats in this thread including this one though.

It's basically uselessly slow. The other PC I can barely put up with is DBAN'd and ready for recycling unless I fully reformat and update to SP3 and Update, so please pardon un-researched questions.

So I updated this computer from Windows SP1 to SP3 and did Windows Update hoping that would make it faster, but it didn't. It was rediculously slow right after the XP install.

Could the XP CDs I have be damaged resulting in a slow OS even if no errors were displayed? Damaged in a way that damages hardware too?
I checked online for XP OS CDs to buy to see if it's the CDs I used that are the problem. I thought an XP OS CD was an XP OS CD, but found specific brand and model ones with drivers for that machine. I guess those are obsolete compared to a plain/universal XP OS CD and going to the manufacturer's website to downlaod even more recent drivers, no? Though, again, the tons of updates I got for the other PC I made this thread about were all 'optional' except for a keyboard one.


Do you suggest I do anything different than this link? Can I just go to the downloads site right after windows installs instead of burning

drivers to a CD?
http://esupport.sony.com/EN/osmig-test/xpclean.html

Drivers for my PC link: Suggestions? Looks like the important ones in the other link are missing from what they offer me.

I installed the fan one and it stopped running so loud. The other I tried said I 'need SP1 installed. please DL it from link' and I have sP3.
http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/model-home.pl?mdl=PCVRX651&template_id=1®ion_id=1&tab=download#/downloadTab


Since I don't have any VAIO CD, do I need to get one even if I don't want the VAIO programs? Same with burning a Sony Shared Library insstall

CD? Those programs seem like things I don't even need/can just download something similar if I do. I'm basically fine with just plain windows and adobe flash and reader.

Maybe I can save the PC I made this thread about too.



f6 to instlall RAID driver?

Thank you.