really poor harddrive performance

awhit1 · November 12th, 2003, 05:56 PM

Ive upgraded my system over time bur my HD keeps getting slower. I up to 2.66ghz p4 and pc3200 memory and my ATA100 HD is getting slower not faster bench results down to 710 on pcmark2002. Running Xp sp1 with all the ms updates . Yes DMA is enabled. Bios does show the system recognizes it as an ATA100 drive. Disk has been defragged. What could cause such slow perf?

ZeroAce · November 12th, 2003, 06:23 PM

I get the same problems...

DoctorReno · November 12th, 2003, 06:33 PM

How large is the HD and how full is it?

Also it is a known fact that many of the patches actually degrade performance until MS finally gets around to rewriting them correctly.

Finally, the stock defrtag program is very poor at best. Diskeeper offers a free Lite version that is vastly superior to the included MS defrag and it is a free download: http://www.boostware.com/hardware/ha...eper_lite.html

awhit1 · November 12th, 2003, 08:24 PM

Thanks Doc I'll check out diskeeper. Have a 60GB HD about 46%free. Just cant seem to get anything close to ATA100 performance.

Dputiger · November 13th, 2003, 12:03 AM

Are your chipset drivers installed? What chipset is the motherboard? Have you installed the Intel chipset drivers?

DoctorReno · November 13th, 2003, 12:56 AM

Also what MoBo are you using.... some need specific BIOS upgrades to achieve the specs they provide. PcChips being the first that come to mind.

Also, with a 60GB drive performance can usually be improved by creating partitions.... the OS and apps go into the primary partition.... approx 8 - 10 GB and data etc can go into other partitions.

There are a number of other tweaks that can be applied that will improve performance. I need to dig them out and put them into a chronological order but if you want to PM me or send me an Email I would be happy to send them to you in the future.

Also... you need to run Diskeeper a number of times to fully defrag your drive the first time, then do it on a daily basis.

Oh.... a final thought. This involves your paging file. This can DRAMATICALLY reduce performance if it is is fragmented. Diskeeper Lite will show you if it is fragmented.... it is the yellow. If it is not one contiguious file then that can account for poor performance. If there are several litttle yellow lines then you have a fragmented paging file. I can suggest how you can optomize your paging file.
Good luck

DoctorReno · November 13th, 2003, 12:58 AM

Ok one other thought.... you might well be advised to upgrade to better IDE cables that support faster transfers. Relatively cheap and can always be moved to a new machine

tgxiii · November 13th, 2003, 01:18 AM

Yeah, I once replaced the IDE cables on one of my computers and it made a noticeable difference.

Btw, how does Norton's Speed Disk compare to the disk defragmenter that comes with Windows and Diskeeper?

awhit1 · November 13th, 2003, 01:21 AM

thanks again I have matsonic 9377c mobo using SIS 648FX North Bridge and SIS 963L South Bridge chipsets already went to site and got the latest drivers but the install CD doesnt install a separate IDE driver. I browsed the CD and did find a file called mini ide driver but I'm not sure if I should install it

Peter M · November 13th, 2003, 03:45 AM

So what THROUGHPUT do you actually get from the drive? No Sandra numbers please, MBytes per second.