But the performance impact of these things shouldn't really cause XP to be so slow.
They do actually, especially on VIA based chipsets.
It could be the differences between capturing real time TV capturing without dropping a frame VS dropping alot of frames. This is especially true on the older VIA chipsets.
Not much of a problem with nForce II since I’m personally still using MS WinXP's UDMA IDE drivers).
UDMA66/100 cabling: Don't know.
You can know your UDMA mode via
"Press Windows key + Pause key" -> click to "Hardware" tab-> click to "Device manager" button -> click right button mouse "Properties" menu (on top of "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers") -> "Advance Settings" tab.
My current nForce II box’s UDMA mode is at 'Ultra DMA Mode 5**'. The MSI 6330 V3.5 box is also operating (remote desktop access) at 'Ultra DMA Mode 5' (this is via the old VIA 686B southbridge
;-) ).
** Slower slave UDMA100 HD was fitted on the same IDE channel (due to personal file transfers). It should be at 'Ultra DMA Mode 6'.
What about yours?
Judging from your Athlon (I’m guessing it's a Thunderbird core) 1.3 Ghz’s (without over clock) age and your chipset is VIA, one could guess that your VIA chipset would be in region of KT133x or KT266x. Unless you recently upgraded to VIA KT333x/KT400 class. VIA KT400A has substantially improved due to Nvidia's nForce II competition.
Does your Athlon box uses DDR SDRAM or normal SDRAM?
MS Boot'Vis: No.
This is a free MS utility that optimises your XP setup i.e. in regards to boot time and how many NT services should be turned on.
Memory timings: Don't know.
Where does one begin? One could write pages on this topic. This is related to your BIOS settings.
Time probably gave me two 64MB DIMMS, or even worse, four 32MB ones. I'd need to buy at least 128MB DIMM. It's too costly a step for me, considering it's not even my computer. And I have no idea what kind to buy, or whether they'd conflict with my current ones...
But you bought a Pegy?
?(I think you did...). Was your Pegy pre-configured? Did you assemble this by yourself?