Why is my hard disk soooo slow?

[ugh]

Hi all,

I just benched my Maxtor 20GB UATA100 in SiSoft Sandra 2001 and got a reading of ~8000. It's even slower than a UATA66 hard disk! And yes, I've installed the 4-in-1 drivers although they are not the latest. Below are my system specs:

XP 1600+
EPOX 8KHA+
256MB PC2400
GF2MX
Sony CRX-140E CD-RW
Win2k SP2

TIA.

 

[ugh]

Bump?

 

[mee987]

I have the EXACT same problem - I have PM'd you and messaged via ICQ.

For anyone else reading this, I am getting identical problems using my Maxtor 40gb ata100 7200rpm drive on epox 8kha+ with athlon xp 1700+. I tried the drive in a friend's system earlier today, and it still does the same thing on his p3 system with intel chipset

 

[DuffMan]

In your bios make sure you have "use UDMA if possible" checked, it was off by default on mine. In the device manager in windows open up the properties of your HD, or hd controller(depending on which version of windows) and see if you using UDMA, and check all the stuff about using UDMA. Also in yoru bios make sure it isn't set to use ata33 or something. Defragmenting often will help your speed.

 

[HamSupLo]

I had the EXACT same problem with either my Maxtor and Quantum hard drives when they are set as the primary master with the win2k partition on it. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to set at UDMA. I got a score of 3000 using Sandra. I had 4.37 4 in 1's installed and had tried to enable DMA under Device Manager. But, today, I got a breakthrough....finally got DMA to work, yes!!! here's what i did:

Got rid of the 4.37 IDE drivers. Installed the 4.28 ide driver. When I booted, Windows did the new device install thing when it detected my hard drives. I had it choose the Via Bus Master drivers for both drives. It does that for each drive and makes you reboot. After I reboot, I checked and it says it's UDMA under the Via DMA Tool that came with 4.28 drivers. For some reason, I think the newer 4 in 1's put the DMA tool in the Device Manager and it's all screwed up. I rebenched my master drive and got ~15000 which is a hell lot better than 3000. I hope this helps.

 

[ugh]

<< Got rid of the 4.37 IDE drivers. Installed the 4.28 ide driver. When I booted, Windows did the new device install thing when it detected my hard drives. I had it choose the Via Bus Master drivers for both drives. It does that for each drive and makes you reboot. After I reboot, I checked and it says it's UDMA under the Via DMA Tool that came with 4.28 drivers. For some reason, I think the newer 4 in 1's put the DMA tool in the Device Manager and it's all screwed up. I rebenched my master drive and got ~15000 which is a hell lot better than 3000. I hope this helps. >>



Sounds good... Just one question, how do you uninstall the IDE drivers for the 4-in-1?

 

[LordAccord]

Ben, I know you had these problems in XP.... but do you still have that sheet that Brent gave us about enabling UDMA through the registry in 2k? Do you remember that?

LoRdAccord

 

[mee987]

kory, if you have something worthwhile to say, just call me. otherwise get off the phone and quit bein a idiot.

 

[HamSupLo]

Sounds good... Just one question, how do you uninstall the IDE drivers for the 4-in-1?

Format and reinstall Win2k....not kidding. I tried to uninstall the driver, but it rendered my OS unbootable. Stupid 4 in 1's.

 

[LordAccord]

I was trying to help the people who are also having your problems but under win2k.......

but for the record: I will, BYE!

LoRdAccord

 

[ugh]

<< Sounds good... Just one question, how do you uninstall the IDE drivers for the 4-in-1?

Format and reinstall Win2k....not kidding. I tried to uninstall the driver, but it rendered my OS unbootable. Stupid 4 in 1's. >>



Bahh.... I guess I'll wait till I REALLY need the extra performance...

 

[HamSupLo]

It's so worth it. I definitely notice my computer running faster. No more random stutters with MP3s playing and my ACDsee loads up a thumbnail of pictures much faster. You might want to try just reinstalling the older IDE driver over the newer one. Just a suggestion.

 

[ugh]

<< It's so worth it. I definitely notice my computer running faster. No more random stutters with MP3s playing and my ACDsee loads up a thumbnail of pictures much faster. You might want to try just reinstalling the older IDE driver over the newer one. Just a suggestion. >>



I tried installing the IDE drivers version 3012 yesterday and got my hard disk running at ATA100. However, after I benched the HD, it gave me a reading of ~5800. Not sure what I did wrong. My MP3 doesn't stutter and ACDSee loads the images just fine. That's why I don't wanna reformat