Windows 2000 Advanced Server Won't Work RIght On Dell Dimension 3000

Please read my problems and see if you what I am missing.

For almost a year now I have fought over and over again (plus spent 30-40 hours with moron Dell technicians who cannot spack English well enough to communicate) trying to get Win2k AS on this Dell Dimension 3000. I can get it to install, only takes 2 days to run the Windows setup.

Once it's all installed (drivers and all, fresh start, no other software), it takes about 5 minutes to open any settings. It takes about 5 minutes to list hardware in my DEVICE MANAGER and 10 minutes more if I want to attempt to change anything. Even photoshop 6.0 that I have on a CDROM (yes, it will run from USB drive to on any computer) that I use on my other computers takes about 20 minutes to start (usaully only takes 2 minutes max on my P2 333mhz which is almost 10 times slower by the CPU clocking). I even install service pack 4 and did updates on Windows (took about 4 hours to install SP4, on my P2 333mhz, it only takes 15 minutes to install SP4 on win2kas). WTF? Is Dell purposely screwing business people like me?

TASK MANAGER shows between 65%-100% cpu usage from a fresh reboot. I have made sure the Primary-Secondary IDE channels are using MDA (DEVICE MANAGER settings) but no luck. I was buttuming for the longest time that it was harddrives slowing me down, but it's something goofing up sucking up CPU usage.

I have 3 Dell Dimesnions (3ghz, 1024 RAM, 80 WD HD) that I bought to use as server, $1500 bux wasted that I cannot do anything with (Dell support lied to me saying I should be able to use as a server) until my warranty was up). I have tried about 15 times to install win2kas, so it's not just a glitch... I have set up about 20 other PCs with win2kas and even have 3 older PCs running with it, so I know it's not me (I am experienced with servers).

I even went as far as wipping the harddrives to get rid of Dell's hidden drive (I used the Dell Resouce CD to boot win98 version of DOS, then found that it had FDISK on it, so I deleted every partion and reset my own from scratch then did a DOS based format after reboot), but still the same crap after I installed.

I am very frustrated, I have tried hundreds of different tactics, wasted hundreds of hours and lost hyundreds of dollars as I have not been able to use these 3 useless Dell Dimesnion 3000s!

Funny thing, with WinXP home edition that comes with the Dimensions works great as expected, but Win2kAS makes it run like a Pentium 133mhz computer. WHY IS THIS? ANYONE?