Website and admin slow/time-out after moving WordPress to another server and URL

I need to move an old website to a new server and a new URL. I was given the site files and the SQL file, but no access to the original host cPanel.

The original creator of the site also changed the site’s URLs in Settings > General to point to the new URL, but she did this after backing up the site and database (which ar the files she sent me). The site is running on WordPress 3.0.1 and has many plugins with updates available.

I have followed all of the steps I know to be correct from changing the DNS to editing the wp-config.php file to searching and replacing all of the old URL names in the database.

I can get the site to work, although page load times seem to hang frequently, but I can only access the admin dashboard sometimes. And even if I do get in, clicking any other navigation link once in the dashboard usually starts a never ending page load.

The farthest I’ve gotten has been to login tot he admin and update WordPress to the current version and even update the plugins. Evan after the updates, the pages on both the back and front end sometimes take forever to load if at all.

I have dropped all tables from the database and deleted and re-upload all the site files several times trying to fix the issue.

I think the issue has to do with the fact that the original database and site files point to URL#1 and that the WordPress install currently living on URL#1 is setup to point to URL#2, causing an infinite loop when I try to access the wp-admin on the WordPress install living on URL#2. I’m just not sure what to do to fix it. If I had access to URL#1’s server and WordPress admin I could probably work it out.