HDD has slow transfer rates and CPU load is CRAZY high

[GraingerGuy]

Hey everyone,

Ok..here's the deal. I have a 300 GB 7200 rpm drive from WD. This is the replacement drive they sent me when I sent back my 250 that was fubared.

The problem is...now that it doesn't erase itself all the time, the drive transfer rates are VERY slow. How do I know this you say?

1. a 300MB file is taking 5-7 minutes to transfer from one partition (On the same drive) to another. (On my 300GB)

2. A 400MB folder full of stuff is taking >200 minutes to transfer from on partition (On the same drive) to another. (On the 80 gig)

2. When I download patches for City of Heroes, it tells me how fast the HDD is working to patch the files. And, it's telling me that at the beginning, it is working at .5MB/sec. Then, nearer the end, it is going at around 5-6 MB/sec.

Another thing that is going on is the CPU load is jumping around like crazy. I can be doing nothing and it will go from 0% useage to 11%-15% to 2%, etc.

I've checked for spyware with Adaware and Spybot...nothing except the regular tracking cookies. I reformatted and reinstalled just two months ago. I have the VIA IDE drivers installed. All my drivers are current.

Help me! Slow computer make Grainger go something, something.

Hardware:

AMD 3500+
ASUS a8v
WD 3000jb (300GB)
WD 800jb (80GB)
ATI 9800 Pro
420W Antec TruPower
Audigy
Liteon 52x CD-RW (Which windows doesn't detect...anyone know why?)
Pioneer 106s

[InfiniteNothing]

I had problems similar to what you're describing (5-6Mb/s) and it turned out DMA was disabled on the drive. Check that.

[GraingerGuy]

I just checked in Device Manager and the settings are to ""DMA if available". And it says that my 300GB drive is running in PIO. This is after I forced it in the BIOS to run in DMA. Write caching is also enabled on the disk. Is there a jumper that I need to replace or something?

Thanks for the suggestion though.

[zero2dash]

Try a different IDE cable maybe...? :shrug:
It should run in DMA not PIO...something's iffy either in Device Manager or your BIOS...and/or you've got a bad IDE cable.
Have you tried updating the BIOS? (Maybe try that as a last resort, but honestly I don't think that has anything to do with it.)

There aren't any jumpers (AFAIK) on HD to change whether they run in DMA or PIO; that's up to the OS I believe. Is this an ongoing problem or did it just come out of nowhere (and prior to this, you didn't have any problems)?

I used to have problems burning CDs with Windows 2000 until I realized that (by default) it made my optical drives run in PIO...after changing that, I didn't have any problems. I'd bet that your problem is because of the PIO...I just don't know why it won't run in DMA.

[mechmike0034]

Lotsa stuff here you can try: http://winhlp.com/WxDMA.htm

[Markel]

Lotsa stuff here you can try: http://winhlp.com/WxDMA.htm
Yeah, that's the place for the info. When I've seen this happen, it's been with a DVD drive that had too many errors.

[shocky123]

If I recall correctly, PIO mode is worst/slowest mode the disk can be running in. Check your BIOS settings, see why it's not running at ATA4/5 (ATA100/133).

Oh, I have a Lite-On 52X CD thingy too.. mine is no longer detected by windows as of a couple days ago..... after a HUGE MASSIVE DISGUSTING fiasco with messing around w/ XP sp2, I had to reformat, etc. Turns out the drive is shot :(

good luck w/ the drive.
(try some drive-testing utilities and see whats the deal.. everest used to be free and it had a similar thingy)


~Kyle

[GraingerGuy]

Ok....this is really wierd.

1. I don't have the key they are talking about in the link you provided Mech...so I'm not willing to mess around in my registry if I don't know what's happening. I also can't run that program...is there a free version of VB floating around?

2. Shocky - I did force it in the BIOS to run at UDMA5 and it still isn't doing it.

I just checked in Device manager and it says that my 80 gig is running at UDMA4, my dvd and cd-rw are running at UDMA2 but my 300 gig is running at PIO? Should I just reformat and say heck with it?

[mechmike0034]

Which reg entry (of the ones mentioned in the article) don't you have?

Are your hard drives on the same IDE channel? Are they configured master/slave, or cable select? If the other HD is at UDMA4 then it doesn't seem to be an IDE controller problem.

Is your BIOS set to auto-detect the drives? Does it do so correctly?

Jsst throwing stuff out, trying to cover all the bases.

[johnnymk]

Disconnect the LiteOn CDRW and see what happens.

[mechmike0034]

Don't know how relevant this is, but a few years ago I had an older PCChips board that had to be tricked (using a reg hack) into running the drives as UDMA. The only way the HD would do it was if it was running on the secondary IDE channel.

Here's some other stuff to peruse: http://www.mdgx.com/2k1.htm#U6ATW

[Jeffbx]

GG, are you still having the problem?

It's doing it because at some time in the past, you had trasnfer errors on your HD. Windows will automatically downgrade the connection from the faster DMA to the more stable (but much much slower) PIO mode. Unfortunately, the problem with this is that there is no easy way to force the connection back to DMA.

Here's the MS Knowledgebase article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472/en-us) about it - if you follow the registry change for XP, it should take care of it. I had this happen with a CD burner before, and the change in the article worked for me.

[GraingerGuy]

Hi...

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was away for the weekend.

So, I found the reg entries and tried them out. No banana. I've disconnected everything but the drive in question. No banana. I've made sure that the drives are on cable select...again....no banana.

slow drive...make Grainger go something something.

[Jeffbx]

OK, try this (this isn't your boot drive, is it?)

- remove the drive in Device Manager
- shut down your PC
- physically disconnect the drive from the IDE cable
- reboot your machine to let it remove any leftover entries for the drive(probably unnecessary step, but just in case)
- Shut down again & re-install the drive
- Fire your machine back up again

When it finds the 'new' device, it should add it as UDMA.

IF IT IS STILL PIO - then sorry man, you probably have another bad drive. Run some diags on it & RMA it again.

[mechmike0034]

:stupid:

Jeff's right...

As an alternative, do you have access to another box that you can temporarily install the suspect drive in as a secondary? Might be worth a shot to see if the behavior is similar. If it goes to PIO access in a different machine then the problem is definitely the drive itself.

I also just found this, don't know if there's anything there you haven't already tried: http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/