Lagging? Hmmm, XP doesn't lag on this system(2.4c ghz P4 o/ced to 3.2ghz, i865PE chipset, 512MB PC3200 DDR Ram in Dual Channel DDR config). As a matter of fact, it doesn't even lag on an old 1ghz PIII on i815E chipset w/256MB of PC-133 SDRAM box that I have sitting down in my basement.
I even managed to get it to run decently on a buddies Pentium II 233mhz(oc'ed to 300mhz) on i440BX chipset w/256MB of PC-100 SDRAM(a system I built for him a long time ago). That same friend also owns a 550mhz AMD K6-2 w/256MB of PC-100 Ram Hewlett Packard computer. We can't get XP to run worth a shit on it. OEM computers just simply suck. They are built with the cheapest possible parts so the OEM makes more money in the end. When you skimp on part quality you lose performance, no doubt about it. Oh yeah, both of his comps use a 30GB 7,200 RPM hard drive w/2MB cache buffer that runs in ATA/66(the drive in his PII can do ATA/100 but the chipset doesn't allow that mode because it is so old). So the HD is not a difference making factor between the 2 comps.
I'm willing to bet your school uses OEM computers. I guess shitty computers should have an old OS on it like Windows 2000.
[ September 22, 2003: Message edited by: Viper ]