WTF? Searches on my HD bring computer to a crawl in WinXP

[bravesfan258]

Every time I use the 'Search' function in Windows XP to find a file, my computer drags almost to a standstill. I'm used to searches slowing down other apps, but now my computer slows to the point that the mouse barely moves (and with a 10 second delay at that).

What I don't understand: I have an old laptop at work, running Win2k on a 500 MHz Pentium with what I'm assuming is a 4000 RPM HD. Why now does my system with a 7200 RPM drive and a 1.4 GHz Athlon XP get killed so badly? My disk format is FAT32 - is this the problem?

PS - I've already selected 'Index this drive'

Any fixes/insights are appreciated.

 

[bacillus]

is the hdd using dma??

 

[bravesfan258]

Sorry - don't know what DMA is <search "DMA"> Direct memory access: Now I know what it is; how do I tell if it's enabled?

Thanks

 

[BFG10K]

In your device manager look under your IDE controllers and check that both controllers are using DMA.

 

[sandorski]

WinXP does some nifty things. I haven't performed a Search yet, but I have a few directories with over 1k files and when I enter them my computer slows to a crawl too. I dunno the exact reason, but I stumbled across a file cache setting somewhere before and highly suspect that that is the problem.

 

[RPB]

been having the same problem and just solved it . Asus Tusl2-C

look and see if the advanced setting tab is showing on the primary or secondary controller in the device manager.

if it isn't then the driver is the culprit.

was (Intel(r) 82801BA Ultra ATA Controller) (no tab and hangs using search)

changed to (Intel(r) 82801BA Bus Master IDE Controller) (tab shows no hang using search)

i hope this helps. 😀

 

[CZroe]

I used TweakUI to revert to the old search style but I can't search for anything because I have a folder w/ 4,000 zip files in it. WXP's Zip-folder support extracts EVERY LAST ONE of them, even when you are only doing a filename search! Needless to say, it'll take all night on that.