Noel
Wed Jun 18 14:39:44 PDT 2008
Paul,
Thanks for taking so much trouble with my problem.
I have downloaded and run hdtune. On the info tab I get exactly the same as
you! The IDE drive showing "Supported: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)" and
"Active: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)", so the interface is running at full
speed. However my 'Minimum access speed' is 4 Mb/sec and 'maximum' is 56
Mb/sec. Access time is 14.9 m/s. Burst rate 75 Mb/sec. CPU usage 4.2%.
The yellow 'Access time' scatter plots seem similar to the one on the hdtune
website but my graph varies greatly from the one shown. It starts at about
55 Mb/sec and drops to about 28 but it does not drop in a uniform way. There
are about 5 huge downward spikes, two of which briefly drop to 4 Mb.sec and
two to 20 Mb/sec.
The 'health' scan is all marked 'OK' thought the 'Relocated sector count'
and 'Spin retry count' are highlighted in yellow.
The 'error' scan is virtually all green.
I checked in Device Manager and The IDE Channel Advance setting does show
'DMA if Available'.
It's getting late here in the UK now so I will try the other things you
suggest tomorrow.
I really appreciate you help.
Noel
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message news:g3bf03$7li$1@aioe.org...
> Noel S Pamfree wrote:
>> When I click on drive C: in Explorer it takes my machine ages to show the
>> file directory.
>>
>> If I am in Internet Explorer and go to Bookmarks and hold my cursor over
>> the down arrow it moves at about 1 file per second.
>>
>> These are the things I have rules out:
>>
>> Hard drive has 44 Gb left on it
>> Internet Security shows no sign of viruses
>> I have run a registry cleaner
>> I also ran CCleaner.
>> I tested the memory but after hundreds of passes no fault was found.
>>
>> I am no expert but I am wondering whether it could be a fault on the hard
>> drive or other hardware problem?
>>
>> I use XP with SP2 on a Dell Dimension 2400.
>>
>> Any suggestions welcomed.
>>
>> Noel
>
> To get some info on a hard drive, you can use HDTune.
>
>
http://www.hdtune.com/
>
> The Info tab, shows the capabilities. For example, my IDE
> drive shows "Supported: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)" and
> "Active: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)", and that means
> the interface is running at full speed. If there are
> excessive CRC errors detected, Windows can slow the
> active rate down to PIO mode, which achieves about
> 4MB/sec transfer rates, because the data is polled
> transferred by the processor.
>
> By running a transfer rate benchmark, you can also get
> some ideas that way. My drive does 60MB/sec at the
> beginning of the disk, and 40MB/sec near the end of the
> disk. If the plot shows a flat line at 4MB/sec, that would
> be PIO mode limiting the test results.
>
> You can see similar information, by looking in Device
> Manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI controller, IDE Channel,
> Advanced Setting, should show something like "DMA If Available".
> If you see PIO instead, then Windows may have slowed the
> interface down. The "Workaround" section here, suggests
> how to (temporarily) fix it. The fix would be temporary,
> if the underlying cause is still present (bad signal integrity,
> or a problem with the drive itself). You can get a diagnostic
> program from the disk drive manufacturer, if you suspect a
> disk hardware problem.
>
>
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472
>
> For basic hardware info, a program like CPUZ allows a Windows
> user, to check and verify the basics of their hardware (CPU
> and memory info).
>
>
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
>
> For comparison, there is some info on the Dimension 2400 here.
>
>
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim2400/en/sm_en/specs.htm
>
> To benchmark a CPU, I use a program like this as a quick check.
> You'd need to benchmark the system when it was working well, in
> order to compare with performance later. The best result I've
> got on my system, was SuperPI computing PI to 1 million digits,
> in 45 seconds. With my antivirus software installed, and some
> slight tweaks for stability, my system currently achieves
> a time of 50 seconds (i.e. slower). My current P4 clock rate is
> 3.08GHz, for comparison to your own processor. (There is a site that
> has thousands of benchmark results, hwbot.org, but finding
> the info you want is not that easy.)
>
>
http://www.xtremesystems.com/pi/super_pi_mod-1.5.zip (download)
>
http://www.xtremesystems.com/pi/ (release notes)
>
> Some P4 results.
>
http://www.hwbot.org/browseHardwareProcessors.do?cpuSubFamilyId=16
>
> Naturally, there are lots of possible causes, and the
> above doesn't really narrow them down that much. Another
> test technique, is to boot a freshly installed OS or an
> alternate OS, and see if the symptoms are present or not.
> I use Ubuntu or Knoppix Linux LiveCDs as an alternate test
> for hardware, as they don't need to install anything on
> the hard drive, to work. Both of those are available as
> a 700MB download, then you burn the ISO9660 image to a
> CD. Then, boot the computer with the CD. You really
> need high speed internet for such a download, and on my
> crappy connection, it takes around an hour or so with a
> good server.
>
> Good luck,
> Paul