Hi I am running SUSE 9.0 and this is the general info about my box (from 'uname -a'): linux 2.4.21-166-smp4G #1 SMP i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux (CPU 2.8 GHz, 1GB DualChannell RAM and Maxtor 160 GB SATA hard disk) It has just one physical CPU with multi-thread support enabled and I guess that's why it is using the smp4G kernel. But the problem is the very bad performance of the system, and it is way slow in responding to the clicks and keyboard punches. The boot process takes a long time and when it comes to reading/writing off the hard disk... the system monitor shows that cpu is being used about 60% by the kernel and it takes unusual amount of time to just open an email. I did some research... and couldn't help but blame the SATA hard disk. It is connected to SilImage 3112 controller. Actually my motherboard is Gigabyte 8KNXP which has 2 IDE/ATA controller and two SATA controllers (ICH5 and SilImage). The hard disk is connected to the first SATA connector of the SilImage (I tried to connect it to other available SATA connections on the board, but since WindowsXP was first installed on the hard disk, it wouldn't boot to windows anymore.) To copy a CD onto hard took 20 minutes, so I checked the "IDE DMA Mode" in YAST. I could change the DMA of CD-ROM to ultra-33 (it is connected to one of IDE ports) but upon changing the DMA for hard disk, the system locked up. So, as you can see I am in a desperate situation here and if anybody could help me or point me to the right direction, I would be very grateful. Thanks Hamid -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/