IDE Channel no 80 conductor cable installed...memory check won't work? GQ 3121.

I was one of the crazy insane people who went to Fry's early in the morning and picked up those $99 computers. It had a 40 GB hard-drive so I replaced with a 160GB Maxtor. Then I noticed it gave me a IDE Channel no 80 conductor cable installed after it detected my HD and then booted as normal. Will it affect my performance?

Another thing I noticed is at times, after it detect my CPU at the bootup, it would hang and suddenly be at the Windows XP loading screen. It saids something like Sempron 2200+ CPU detected... Then where it should continue to do a memory check and detect my HD and DVD, it doesn't do that and freezes there.

I hope it's just a the memory and not the motherboard. I do notice it's VERY slow at times...slower than my 1GHz or even the P3s I use to have. Of course it only had 128MB RAM which I will upgrade VERY soon. Could that be the source of the slowness or could it affect it THAT much?

Any help is appreciated.