Hard Drives Running Really Slow

[MattStone]

I just built a system last week, and I've noticed my HDs are running really slow. I have a ATA133 Maxtor, and 2 ATA100 IBM drives. Device Manager shows that they are operating in UDMA mode (so it's not a PIO mode problem), but when I unrar, unzip, join files...or do anything that is extremely HD intensive, it slows down to a crawl. Unraring an complete SVCD took about 2-3 minutes on my old machine (AthlonXP 2000+, ECS K7S5A, 1GB PC2700), but now it's taking about 8 minutes. I haven't noticed any other slowdowns.

Here are my specs:
Athlon64 3000+
Epox 8KDA3+
1GB Kingmax PC3200
XFX Geforce 6800GT
WinXP SP2

 

[DaveSimmons]

Coulld be a virus / worm / trojan taking time to infect new files (or just being busy sending v1agarr4 spam)

 

[MattStone]

I'll run McAfee to make sure, but I don't think so. It wasn't a problem in the old setup, and it was immediatly noticable before I even had my network connection up and running in the new setup...so I don't know when I would have contracted it. I'll check though.

 

[OMG1Penguin]

defrag?

*shrug*

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: MattStone
I'll run McAfee to make sure, but I don't think so. It wasn't a problem in the old setup, and it was immediatly noticable before I even had my network connection up and running in the new setup...so I don't know when I would have contracted it. I'll check though.

Did you have the same antivirus software on the previous system? McAfee likes to tear apart compressed files thoroughly to search them for viruses (which can be good or bad depending on your viewpoint), so if you were using something "lighter" in the past, like AVG Free Edition, that may be the explaination right there. Look at your Task Manager and see where the CPU time is going.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Look at your Task Manager and see where the CPU time is going.

Excellent point -- I do this whenever there is an unexpected slowdown. If the applcations list isn't a clue, try sorting the processes tab by both CPU use and memory use to see what the heavy users are.

 

[MattStone]

so if you were using something "lighter" in the past, like AVG Free Edition, that may be the explaination right there.

Nope, I've been using McAfee on all my machines for a few years.

If the applcations list isn't a clue, try sorting the processes tab by both CPU use and memory use to see what the heavy users are.

I should have mentioned it in my first post, but I do the same. My my CPU time is 99% idle, and memory usage is normal. If I run the speed tests for the HDs in Device Manager, they appear to be normal, but they drop to like 1-2 MB per sec when I'm unraring/moving/etc something.

 

[mechBgon]

If you're using the nVidia SW IDE drivers, it might be interesting to switch the IDE controllers to the standard Microsoft IDE/ATA drivers and see if that has an effect.

 

[MattStone]

I switched from the nforce drivers to the standard IDE drivers, and noticed no difference. From that it sounds like a hardware problem, but I haven't heard anything like this for the Epox 8KDA3+.

 

[mechBgon]

Is your RAM running at full speed? Try CPU-Z and the Memory panel should show the RAM at a 1:1 ratio with the CPU's bus speed.

 

[MattStone]

To put things in perspective, I did a little test. I unrared a 450MB VCD on my machine and on my mom's machine (AthlonXP1900+, ECS K7S5A, 1GB PC133). On my mom's machine it took 21 seconds...on mine it took 3:35!

 

[MattStone]

mechBgon,
It doesn't list a ratio on the Memory panel, but it says the ram is running at 200.9MHz, which is the same as the CPU HTT listing.

 

[MattStone]

BTW, I just noticed that CPU-Z is saying that I'm in single channel mode. Could this have anything to do with it?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: MattStone
mechBgon,
It doesn't list a ratio on the Memory panel, but it says the ram is running at 200.9MHz, which is the same as the CPU HTT listing.

Hmm, the problem is obviously the GeForce 6800GT, you'd better send that to me



Can you temporarily unplug the unnecessary hard drives and test again? Which one's the boot drive, the Maxtor? If the problem persists, try HDTach and see if the seek times are strangely high... I remember a Maxtor we had at work that seemed to have a sticky actuator or something, and while it passed MaxBlast testing fine, it obviously was NOT fine, the seek times were outrageous.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: MattStone
BTW, I just noticed that CPU-Z is saying that I'm in single channel mode. Could this have anything to do with it?

If you can think of a way to get an Athlon64 3000+ to run dual-channel mode, we're all gonna want to know how :Q It would need another 185 pins on the bottom and a second memory controller on the core.

(translation: this wouldn't be the problem )

 

[MattStone]

According to HDTach the seek times on all of my drives are around 13.5ms, and the average read is between 30 and 40. The burst read speed is around 45.

 

[MattStone]

Also, let me add that compared to the graphs of other drives listed in HDTach, my hard drives all drop off a lot quicker than others I've compared them too. Basically mine seems to start out reletively high and then it steadily drops off, much faster than the others.

 

[mechBgon]

How about try with only the boot drive hooked up, and not the other two. What's the Master/Slave layout in your rig, I assume that at least one of those drives shares an IDE cable with an optical drive? Are you doing RAID with the pair of IBMs by any chance? If so, they should each be on their own dedicated cable as Master.

 

[MattStone]

Okay, here's my current setup:
Channel 0:
Master - Maxtor 20GB (boot drive)
Slave - IBM 125GB

Channel 1:
Master - NEC DVD-R
Slave - IBM 75GB

This is the same setup as my last system. I'll disconnect everthing except for the boot and test it.

 

[MattStone]

Okay, talking about my drive setup got me thinking about my different drives...and I decided to try to unrar that VCD on all of them. This is interesting, on my 75GB IBM, it unrars at 3:35 as I said before. On my 125GB IBM, it takes 1 min...and on my 20GB Maxtor, it takes 30 seconds! So, that got me wondering if my 70GB drive was just really, really fragmented. I never unrared stuff on it before, and now I'm using it as my primary storage drive, so I wouldn't have noticed the slowdown on my old setup.

I'm defragging right now. I'll post when it finishes to let you guys know the results. Thanks for all of your help and suggestions.

 

[mechBgon]

That's interesting :Q In the past, I've had people do a WinZip benchmark: copy the files from Disc 1 of Unreal Tournament to their hard drive, then WinZip it at maximum compression. I've noticed that if the drive being used is NOT the system drive where Windows is installed, then WinZip will construct the Zip file on the system drive and then move it from the system drive to the destination. Maybe that's coming into play somewhat here? Data having to get pumped over to the system drive for decompression, then pumped back to the drive where it came from?

 

[MattStone]

That's an interesting idea.

BTW, the drive must be fragmented to all hell. It's now 5% done

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: MattStone
That's an interesting idea.

BTW, the drive must be fragmented to all hell. It's now 5% done

Whoa :Q

 

[MattStone]

Well, after about 6.5 hours or so, it's done. And there appears to be not too much of an increase in speed. I guess I'll just make my other IBM drive my download drive

Oh well.

 

[MattStone]

Wow, now that I really look at it, it appears to be going slower than before...if that's even possible.

What a strange situation...