Question Old Asus-based PC incredibly slow installing Windows 7 ?

[jiv808]

Hi

Picked up an old Asus PC for $20 about a week ago.

Motherboard is an Asus P5LD2 SE LGA775 board with E6600 CPU and has 4GB DDR2 RAM (maximum allowed).

Everything works. Added a 500GB HDD and an old Samsung 192GB SSD.

Now trying to install Windows 7 32bit, BUT IT IS INCREDIBLY SLOW!!! It took like 25 minutes to get to 75% when copying Windows 7 files from the USB to SSD.

Even the when starting up the PC, the text from the BIOS screen showing whats happening just barely chugs along. Like the text on the screen updates slowly.

Can anyone explain what is happening?

 

[rgd1101]

check cpu temp?

an ancient system seem slow compare to today pc.

 

[geofelt]

If you are trying to load windows to the ssd, do not have any other drives connected during the process.
Windows will install files on the hdd requiring it to be present forever.

Since everything initially works, why not use the samsung ssd migration aid to move the original os to the ssd?
App and instructions here:

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

semiconductor.samsung.com

We forget how very slow old processors and hard drives were.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Even the when starting up the PC, the text from the BIOS screen showing whats happening just barely chugs along. Like the text on the screen updates slowly.
Can anyone explain what is happening?

I'd start suspecting overheating.
Check cpu temperature in BIOS.

What cpu cooler are you using?
Check if it is installed properly and fan has not died.

 

[BFG-9000]

Only the very last board revision 2.01G with later BIOSes actually support that Core 2 Duo.

Core 2 can downclock to as low as 200MHz to avoid overheating (if the temperature keeps rising despite this, it shuts off) and I would not expect to see characters type slowly onto the screen even at that speed.

What can really slow down any system like this is a malfunctioning HDD just being attached. Presumably if it was from the SSD not supporting TRIM (incredibly the ICH7 Southbridge does support TRIM despite not supporting AHCI) this would've been temporarily fixed by simply formatting it. It could also just not like your USB stick so better to stick with an optical drive for Windows 7 installs.

 

[jiv808]

Thank you to everyone for their input.

I aborted the slow Win 7 install and then rebooted. Went into BIOS and went to "Health parameters" screen and the CPU temp was up to 65degC!! CPU fan is working. I will remove the heatsink, clean up the surfaces and reapply thermal paste.

I will also disconnect the HDD and try again. It does have an old optical drive and I'll try to install from some old DVDs that I have lying around from past installs (before USB booting became a thing).

 

[jiv808]

Update (for those following or interested.)

Removed the CPU heatsink. Cleaned off the old paste. Added new paste and reseated heatsink.

Also found my old CD folder and a Windows 7+SP1 32-bit install disc (it could run 64-bit but I want to keep it 32-bit). Booted up off the DVD - much better, but the system did "hang" for a bit whilst waiting for the "Install now" screen. After about 3 minutes and accepting the UELA, the install completed within 5 minutes. Much better than the USB attempt.

Now, a question about updates. Have Microsoft shut down the Win 7 update servers? The PC connected to my local network (DHCP) but when I go to get the latest updates I get an error.

Can I still install the remaining updates from those KB files? Does Microsoft still host those somewhere?

 

[BFG-9000]

They are still on Windows Catalog but you would have to download and install each update manually. It would probably be a good idea to at least manually install the Convenience Update from 2016 that most people call SP2 first.

WindowsUpdate servers for Win7 were shut down Jan 16th 2023 .

legacyupdate.net has a working mirror/WSUS proxy server of the old WindowsUpdate catalog for Windows and Office to replace WindowsUpdate functionality. It's pretty much just like the manual WindowsUpdate run in a browser for previous versions of Windows.

 

[satrow]

Avoid installing the ACPI driver for ATK 0110 software, it's a nightmare for 'random' BSODs, similar for any other ASUS software of that era.

 

[jiv808]

Well, finally finished updating the PC.

Thanks to everyone, especially that LegacyUpdate website. It really helped!! PC is working well.