PC choking on my IDE bus?

[pgsirois]

I have an older Soyo SY-TISU motherboard/Celeron 1.2Ghz-based PC. 2 hard drives are chain-connected to IDE port #1: a 8.5Gb 5400rpm IBM UDMA66 boot drive (C: drive), and a 40Gb 7200rpm IBM UDMA100 boot drive (D: drive). Windows XP sp1 boots from the C: drive

Performance on this PC sucks: any operation requiring CPU or file I/O sets off massive disk-thrashing and long wait-times for operations to complete. Prime95 doesn't even push CPU beyond 10%; the PC just sits and disk-thrashes until I stop Prime95.

I'm wondering if my hard rive setup above is choking my PC's performance...should I be able to run UDMA66 and UDMA100 on the same IDE port, and get satisfactory performance?

thanks,
Pete

 

[LTC8K6]

It sounds like you are in PIO mode to me.

Both drives will run at their proper speeds. You will experience a bit of a slowdown only when transferring files between the 2 drives on the same channel.

I would try installing Intel's Application Accelerator if you haven't already.

 

[gwd]

I used the Intel fix and now can hear every click the hdd makes and believe you me its a bit of a shock when you first hear it.

 

[johnjkr1]

Are they running in DMA mode? Also, you should have only one hard drive on the main ide. In addition, you OS will run MUCH faster if you install it on the 7200RPM drive. It is just being wasted used as a backup, use the 5400 rpm drive as a backup.

 

[mechBgon]

Not to be Captain Obvious here, but how much RAM does this system have? Maybe it's just RAM-starved.

 

[pgsirois]

Thanks to all for the suggestions...I'm abashed to say I was wrong about the spec.s. Here are correct details:

Soyo TY-TISU MB (Intel i8405 B-step chipset)
Celeron II 1.2Ghz
256Mb PC100 SDRAM
Win XP sp1 (on HD device 0)
Two UDMA66 drives on primary IDE channel: device 0 is an 8.5Gb IBM Deskstar, device 1 is a 40Gb Seagate.

I confirmed in Device Manager that both devices are running in DMA mode: device 0 is DMA mode 2 (where the OS is), device 1 is DMA mode 5.

To isolate the problem, I disconnected device 1...and performance sucked just as before: massive disk thrashing on device 0 and low CPU utilization for the simplest of operations. Prime95 doesn't even get the CPU above 5%; the disk just thrashes (fwiw, I noticed page file utilization at ~ 55% (365Mb) in Task Manager).

I'm stumped...anyone?

 

[mechBgon]

This sounds like more of a Windows problem than a hardware problem. The Windows installation should not be using ~240MB of RAM plus 355MB of pagefile. The first thoughts springing to mind are worms, viruses, Trojans, spyware and P2P software. Do you have an always-on Internet connection (cable, DSL, satellite)? What kind of firewall hardware/software do you have? How about up-to-date antivirus software?

Click the link in my signature and head to the Resources page if you need links to some free firewall, antivirus and antispyware softwares. If you do have an always-on Internet connection, you owe it to yourself to get a router to sit between you and your connection too.

edit: if it were me, I'd nuke the Windows installation, reformat, reinstall and get my shields up before connecting to the Internet even briefly. Might be a good plan.

 

[mechBgon]

Also, it would probably be smart to delete all your WinXP System Restore files and disable SR. how to do that

 

[pgsirois]

Thanks a bunch, mechB. I like the nuke-Windows-reformat-and-start-over option. NAV protection has been current on the box for months, and there's built-in firewall on the Linksys wireless-g router between the box and DSL/internet. So here's to starting from scratch.

Can I run these 2 drives on the same IDE channel, or should I have the OS drive on primary IDE, and the data drive on secondary IDE (along with my CD and CDRW drives)?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: pgsirois
Thanks a bunch, mechB. I like the nuke-Windows-reformat-and-start-over option. NAV protection has been current on the box for months, and there's built-in firewall on the Linksys wireless-g router between the box and DSL/internet. So here's to starting from scratch.

Can I run these 2 drives on the same IDE channel, or should I have the OS drive on primary IDE, and the data drive on secondary IDE (along with my CD and CDRW drives)?

Be aware that your neighbors could have wireless and could get in on the supposedly-safe side of your router. If their computers are worm-infested and they don't know it, then their computers may be trying to get into yours through your own wireless setup. At that point, you would want to have:

1) strong passwords for the Administrator-class accounts on your computers, to deter share-hopping worms and exploit worms like Blaster and Sasser.

Example of a strong password: cH33t@sRmyPalz! (long, not dictionary-based, contains upper & lower-case letters and symbols)

...or here's one that's tougher: û?R*2iL°¢?aQd>{ (uses ALT characters, not what you want for laptops! )


2) firewall software to babysit traffic in both directions on each computer

3) a patched-up system

As for the drive arrangements, you have four devices and each IDE cable can have only two. Some people say it's best to mix the hard drives and opticals, some say the other way. I keep the HDD's on one and the opticals on the other and don't fret about it