I've done countless windows installs over the years, but i'm having a weird issue with this one.

i just installed WinXP+SP2 streamline on the gf's laptop and everything is working well except for extreme unresponsiveness (or freezing) when moving large amounts of data from an external usb HD to the system drive. The windows interface is very slow if not totally frozen, sometimes the cursor even freezes or becomes choppy. The file transfer progress window and animation usually freezes up just after the transfer begins. The transfer speeds themselves are fast and normal, but the system is essentially locked until they finish.

Moving the same large files from the laptop to the external works perfectly fine, no freezing at all.

I've checked the following:

• Write caching is enabled (even on the USB drive)
  
• DMA is enabled for the system drive (using UDMA-5)
  
• Tried 2 different USB drives, same exact issue with both.
  
• Tested the USB drives on other similar specced machines, no problems.
  

I'm using the latest VIA ide drivers as well for her chipset.

The system is just a base install + current drivers, Office2K3 & NOD32. (btw, it's not caused by the AV, I've added .VOB and .AVI files to the exception list)

Her machine is a BenQ R23E with a Sempron 3000+ (1.8 GHz actual) processor & VIA K8-M800/K8-N800 chipset and 768 meg of ram. I'm actually quite impressed with the build quality of this machine, I had low expectations for a cheapo Benq.

On a side note, what other general computing / windows support forums do TV users like? I've seen some great responses here considering it's a Thai-focused forum but I'd like to see what else people are using. I've found a lot of good solutions to problems at experts-exchange.com, but i'd prefer a free forum.

Cheers!

Are you using USB2 drivers (enabled)? Have had to re-install them on my computers in the past. If you only have the old USB 1.1 or whatever it was they will be dog slow.

Are you using USB2 drivers (enabled)? Have had to re-install them on my computers in the past. If you only have the old USB 1.1 or whatever it was they will be dog slow.

USB2 is definitely being used based on transfer speeds, around 2 GB per minute or so. It's the fact that it locks up the system that troubles me.

I tried rolling back to the MS IDE drivers instead of VIA's but it had no effect.