Computer is staling when I open files.

[drew726]

Recently, my computer has been really stales for a long time whenever I either open a file or right click a file to show the shell menu. I do not hear the hard drive doing anything. I basically wait for like 10 seconds and then I hear the hard drive working. Once the file is opened, my computer is back to normal.

I don't lag when I'm running the program and the load time in games aren't bad either. It seems as though once the memory is allocated for whatever I'm running, everything is fine. It is only when I double-click an executable to run a program or right-click an avi file to select with video player I use.

I think my ram or hard drive might be going bad. I've defragged and scanned my computer for viruses. I recently replaced the PSU, so I dont think its that. The computer is a few years old and I've downloaded a lot of crap on my HD over the that time. Any ideas?

Athlon 64 3000+
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro
Corsair valueselect 1gb
Nvidia 7600gs

 

[cprince]

I think that the hard drive is going to sleep after a period of time idle, and it takes a little while to get it up and running again. Go to Control Panel -> Power Options -> In the "Turn off hard Disk" Section, select "Never."

 

[drew726]

It's already checked "never."

 

[montag451]

Go into Hardware devices,

Look at the hdd - is it set to PIO or DMA?

Also, what cpu % are you at (ctrl-alt-del)?

 

[drew726]

sorry do you mean device manager? there isn't any setting for me to change that. im always like 95% cpu idle when it stales.

 

[drew726]

nm I found it, it says "DMA if available" for both device 0 and device 1. Device 0 lists Ultra DMA mode 2 and device 1 lists Ultra DMA mode 6.

 

[montag451]

Ok.

Did you install the mobo drivers when you installed Win?

 

[drew726]

yeah

 

[drew726]

this only started recently

 

[montag451]

Don't suppose you remember if you installed anything then noticed that the computer wasn't as hot as it was yesterday?

 

[cprince]

Originally posted by: montag451
Don't suppose you remember if you installed anything then noticed that the computer wasn't as hot as it was yesterday?

It could be an antivirus or anti-spyware program that scan the file before you open it.

 

[drew726]

It might be my Zone Alarm. I'll try disabling it.

 

[drew726]

holy crap, uninstalled zonealarm and my computer is going crazy fast again. now i need to go find a new firewall/anti-virus...any suggestions?

 

[benzylic]

I suggest Comodo Personal Firewall