Boot Camp running very slow.

I have Windows XP installed through boot camp, and it seems the hard drive is acting very very slow. Or basically XP in general. Installations are taking a very long time. It literally took 4 hours to install Modern Warfare 2. I was wondering what I should do. Thanks in advance.

In case anyone is wondering I have the 2008 iMac 2.4 Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 7200rpm HD.

EDIT: Also in device manager, under SM bus controller there is a yellow question mark, could that be part of the problem?

 

no wonder. your ram is insanely inadequate!!! you need at least 2-3gb and im sure you dont have the right video card to run mw2 properly,

 

no, i have installed xp before and worked fine. i also have played MW2 on it also so prob there. but i erased that partition since and now its awfullyly slow this time around

 

may be it's because you need to do a reformat. 1gb is adequate for xp.

 

i agree 1 GB should be fine.

what graphics card do you have?

STEPS:

insert leopard or snow leopard disc.

boot from disc.

run disk utility

reformat hard drive

reinstall leopard

run boot camp

partition hard drive

install windows & windows updates

install boot camp (windows)

*update graphics card drivers*

install steam & modern warfare 2

 

Woah, dang, does that mean I'm going to have to wipe my entire drive? Someone please tell another way, lol.

And now for some reason if I try to boot into windows xp, it shows the logo with the blue loading bar and then after that the computer restarts =( Perhaps I do need a reformat. Is there a way to save all my files? I don't have an external HD at the moment.

 

Burn your data to DVD's. But a external hard drive will be cheaper.

 

Hmm, I do have a couple of DVD RWs, I think I'll do that then. I just hope this reformat fixes the problem.

 

What are your temps running on the mac. Overheating??????

 

Funny you should ask that. Read this before I continue please:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=450043&highlight=dying

Well, I think I resolved the problem and I don't think the hard drive is failing. I noticed that my iMac's fans had stopped running completely for some reason. It was getting really hot all the time. I noticed this was not happening until after the incident detailed in the link above. I figured maybe that it was the heat that was causing the computer to run so slow. I performed a SMC reset or something like that but that caused the fans to run at high speed ALL THE TIME. However the HD temps dropped from 130+ F to 90 F. The computer was running much faster though but I couldn't stand the loud noise. So I unplugged the computer from the socket and wait for awhile to stop it. I installed smcfancontrol to control the fans manually. So I installed windows XP on boot camp after all this. However it runs very slow after I boot into XP for about the 3rd or 4th time. Do you think the HD has suffered internal damage, or a reformat should fix the problems?

 

Does it become slow only in bootCamp or this happens also in Os X? Considering what you have said about the temps of your hard drive, i think that it's definitely got bad sectors now. A hard drive should not exceed 50c (122f). 130+f is outside its oparating range. You should definitely get it repaired now. It's broken. Good luck.

 

If there still is a yellow question mark in Device manager in your new xp installation, something is not installed or at least not installed correctly. Maybe the chipset drivers were not installed, which could make xp run very slow indeed.

 

I just reformatted, I will install XP when I get home in the afternoon and will give updates if it fixed the problem.

And @Luke, it seems to run just fine in OS X, maybe just a little slower than usual.

 

if it's slower than usual, then i suggest you bring it to the apple store. The hard drive may be damaged. Keep us updated with your results.

 

Update on the issue. I reinstalled OS X after the format. Runs very smooth no problems. Still controlling fans manually, just in case anything happens. I tried installing XP, froze while formatting NTFS (not quick). Stopped at 6%.

Now here is the weird part. I installed Windows 7, and....it worked! And is running fairly smooth. Lets see if it stays that way. WiFi is functioning, applications opening quickly. Transferring files over from a DVD no problem. Seems A-ok as of now. But I'm not gonna get hasty and say everything has been fixed. I'll report back any developments.

 

If you are using a BIOS Compatible Platform I would have recommended scanning the drive with the manufacturer utility however I don't know if EFI will boot the tool...however you can use the Windows Version to scan.

 

The 5-6% area is where all of the tables are kept. I have used SpinRite to checkout HD's of PC's. But it will require the HD to be removed for testing. I suspect your HD is failing. What did Disk Utility say about the Smart Status and condition.

 

Disk Utility said everything was alright with the HD, no problems. Disk Warrior said the same thing.

Update:
Everything seems to be working still, installed Call of Duty 4 and it runs ok. Still manually controlling fans, I'm scared to not do so. Windows 7 hasn't slowed down yet. Well at least not to a point like it was before in XP. I think the hard drive is damaged but still works decently.