Comp Slows up

[TIMUH!]

Just helped a friend build a new budget PC

Intel Pentium 4 820 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.8GHz (800FSB) - Retail
Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Crucial 512MB (2x256MB) DDR2 PC2-4200C4 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT3264AA53E)

Rest of the stuff was what he had before to plug into this. Build went fine no problems, Windows install went fine also.

He's complaining that after a couple of hours the PC gets really slow and hard to use e.g. takes ages to open programs etc.

I've run AVG, SPybot and Ad-Ware and all is clear
Windows is up to date as are all drivers
CPU temps are ok

I'm a little stuck now, only thing I can think to do next is to re-install windows etc and hope it gets better?

Thoughts please.

 

[steve258]

512mb is not really enough if he has lots of background programmes running. upgrading the memory to 1Gb should give him a nice improvement. otherwise try closing down some programmes in the task bar.

Also remove some unused software and do a disk defragment should help.

 

[TIMUH!]

Its a basic system not for game playing either so 512mb should be enough really, although 1gb would be better.

Also as its a new build there are very few programs installed, XP pro, Office and a few utilities.

Are there any obvious BIOS issues with this board? Or BIOS settings that may need changing. Haven't fiddled with the BIOS much.