Hard Drive Access Speeds

I recently revamped at computer for a friend by replacing all but the
hard drive and DVD-RW drive. It was a basic system as she does not use
much more than the internet and Word, so I chose a Celeron 420 1.6GHz
with 512MB DDR2-667 RAM and XP-Pro. Everything seemed fine until after
a week or so of using it, she told me it was very slow and laggy.

So I had a look, and the CPU was at barely 15% use during idle at the
desktop, with a fair amount of free RAM. So I ruled out the CPU or RAM
being the issue. I tested the hard drive speed on a hunch, and found
to my horror, no higher than 3,060KB\sec (3MB\sec) speed, best of 10
runs. I remember getting over 30MB\sec on my old ATA drives in the
past.

Now this is obviously the issue, the system can't get information fast
enough. The drive is a Seagate 40GB IDE PATA-100 compliant, with an 80-
wire IDE cable shared with the DVD-RW drive. The mobo has only one ATA
slot, so I had to put them both on one cable.

I have no idea why a perfectly good HDD suddenly drops to these low
speeds, any help guys?

I realize a SATA drive would solve the issue but would like to try and
fix it first.

AdenOne wrote:
> I recently revamped at computer for a friend by replacing all but the
> hard drive and DVD-RW drive. It was a basic system as she does not use
> much more than the internet and Word, so I chose a Celeron 420 1.6GHz
> with 512MB DDR2-667 RAM and XP-Pro. Everything seemed fine until after
> a week or so of using it, she told me it was very slow and laggy.
>
> So I had a look, and the CPU was at barely 15% use during idle at the
> desktop, with a fair amount of free RAM. So I ruled out the CPU or RAM
> being the issue. I tested the hard drive speed on a hunch, and found
> to my horror, no higher than 3,060KB\sec (3MB\sec) speed, best of 10
> runs. I remember getting over 30MB\sec on my old ATA drives in the
> past.
>
> Now this is obviously the issue, the system can't get information fast
> enough. The drive is a Seagate 40GB IDE PATA-100 compliant, with an 80-
> wire IDE cable shared with the DVD-RW drive. The mobo has only one ATA
> slot, so I had to put them both on one cable.
>
> I have no idea why a perfectly good HDD suddenly drops to these low
> speeds, any help guys?
>
> I realize a SATA drive would solve the issue but would like to try and
> fix it first.

The transfer rate is consistent with PIO mode.

"IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors occur"
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;817472

See the "Workaround" section for a recipe, then test with HDTach or
HDTune.

Paul

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:14:31 -0800 (PST), AdenOne
<pacific-one@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I recently revamped at computer for a friend by replacing all but the
>hard drive and DVD-RW drive. It was a basic system as she does not use
>much more than the internet and Word, so I chose a Celeron 420 1.6GHz
>with 512MB DDR2-667 RAM and XP-Pro. Everything seemed fine until after
>a week or so of using it, she told me it was very slow and laggy.
>
>So I had a look, and the CPU was at barely 15% use during idle at the
>desktop, with a fair amount of free RAM. So I ruled out the CPU or RAM
>being the issue. I tested the hard drive speed on a hunch, and found
>to my horror, no higher than 3,060KB\sec (3MB\sec) speed, best of 10
>runs. I remember getting over 30MB\sec on my old ATA drives in the
>past.
>
>Now this is obviously the issue, the system can't get information fast
>enough. The drive is a Seagate 40GB IDE PATA-100 compliant, with an 80-
>wire IDE cable shared with the DVD-RW drive. The mobo has only one ATA
>slot, so I had to put them both on one cable.
>
>I have no idea why a perfectly good HDD suddenly drops to these low
>speeds, any help guys?
>
>I realize a SATA drive would solve the issue but would like to try and
>fix it first.

Check the transfer mode of the IDE interface in Device Manager.
Check Event Viewer for any errors.

Transfer mode is not PIO, its Ultra-DMA Mode 5, this was one of the
first things I checked but forgot to put in my original post.

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:57:46 -0800 (PST), AdenOne
<pacific-one@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Transfer mode is not PIO, its Ultra-DMA Mode 5, this was one of the
>first things I checked but forgot to put in my original post.

Google for "HDTach" or use your present benchmark if it
shows CPU utilization and report back on that.

What evidence do you have it's in UDMA mode 5? IMO, more
often people would refer to this as ATA100. On your
benchmark test (or HDTach if needed) does it show a burst
rate approaching 100MB/s?

Does Event Viewer show any errors?
If you consistently get 3MB/s I agree with prior posters
that it seems to be in PIO mode. You might run the HDD
manufacturer's diagnostics to check drive fitness as a 40GB
HDD that's used may be near the end of it's practial
lifespan about now, even if it's not failing yet it is
something to consider replacing as well as the other parts.

Also check Device Manager to see if the optical drive is in
PIO or DMA/ATA33(?) mode, this setting may be under IDE
controller entry instead of optical drive entry.

If all else fails unplug the optical drive and retest, and
try a different drive cable.

"AdenOne" <pacific-one@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7d9fbb95-ca5a-4f33-9dff-13143e797766@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> Transfer mode is not PIO, its Ultra-DMA Mode 5, this was one of the
> first things I checked but forgot to put in my original post.

Just delete the drive and controller from the device manager and reboot.
They will be re-configured when you reboot. If this doesn't work, then get
the latest drivers for your controller and install the drivers, then repeat
this process.

I don't have access to the PC right now, I will wait until I visit her
again.
The rate varied between 400KB\sec and 3,060KB\sec during the tests,
and the drive says Ultra DMA Mode 5 in the device manager, with the
DVD-RW drive being Ultra DMA Mode 2.

It could very well be reaching its lifetime limit, as her old PC was a
really old HP Pentium 4 'Willamette' model, I did recommend replacing
the drive but she needed a new PC for cheap and using the old HDD
saved a fair bit. I will test using HD Tach when I am next there, I
tested my two home PC's today and got 79MB\sec on the SATA2 model and
51MB\sec on the ATA-100 model, so I am now quite sure the slow drive
is her issue.

Thanks for all the help.

"AdenOne" <pacific-one@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1fbf0205-6bd6-4b13-8a46-81b76dc26346@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>I don't have access to the PC right now, I will wait until I visit her
> again.
> The rate varied between 400KB\sec and 3,060KB\sec during the tests,
> and the drive says Ultra DMA Mode 5 in the device manager, with the
> DVD-RW drive being Ultra DMA Mode 2.

The drive might well say that, but double click on the primary (or
secondary) controller and check the information on one of the tabs there -
it lists the master and slave devices in a table and the mode is listed for
each.

> It could very well be reaching its lifetime limit, as her old PC was a
> really old HP Pentium 4 'Willamette' model, I did recommend replacing
> the drive but she needed a new PC for cheap and using the old HDD
> saved a fair bit. I will test using HD Tach when I am next there, I
> tested my two home PC's today and got 79MB\sec on the SATA2 model and
> 51MB\sec on the ATA-100 model, so I am now quite sure the slow drive
> is her issue.
>
> Thanks for all the help.

> The drive might well say that, but double click on the primary (or
> secondary) controller and check the information on one of the tabs there -
> it lists the master and slave devices in a table and the mode is listed for
> each.

Sorry, thats what I meant, the tab for each drive does not list
speeds, its the Primary IDE controller tab I looked at. There is only
1 controller on this board and so it has both drives on it as master-
slave with the HDD being master.

"AdenOne" <pacific-one@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:23c77bc3-03e7-4319-be22-262f1bb4bda7@t1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
>> The drive might well say that, but double click on the primary (or
>> secondary) controller and check the information on one of the tabs
>> there -
>> it lists the master and slave devices in a table and the mode is listed
>> for
>> each.
>
> Sorry, thats what I meant, the tab for each drive does not list
> speeds, its the Primary IDE controller tab I looked at. There is only
> 1 controller on this board and so it has both drives on it as master-
> slave with the HDD being master.

You might get a slight speed improvement if you split the drives over the
two channels, but we're not talking much difference - maybe a few percent.
This is something to address once you have sorted out the real problem!