Slower since new drive added.

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

My system is a Cel 1.7, 256 MB, asus mb (can't remember exact model) with built
in everything.

It used to be ok but I found Iwas running short of disk space. Since it was in a
mess anyway, I decided to start over using a spare 4GB as primary master for the
OS and program files and the original 30GB as primary slave for storing data.

It's not a gaming machine.

Since then I've noticed it seems to be slower starting up, starting programs and
in particular it's slower accessing sounds. Example, if I try to delete
something, it would pause for about 2-3 seconds before playing chord.wav to
alert me to the yes/no box on the screen.

I've turned off all the sounds and that's made a difference.

Could it just be that the older 4GB disk is so much slower than the 30GB one?

--
Chris Pollard


CG Internet café, Tagum City, Philippines
http://www.cginternet.net

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:42:37 +0800, Christopher Pollard
<rubbish@cginternet.net> wrote:

>My system is a Cel 1.7, 256 MB, asus mb (can't remember exact model) with built
>in everything.
>
>It used to be ok but I found Iwas running short of disk space. Since it was in a
>mess anyway, I decided to start over using a spare 4GB as primary master for the
>OS and program files and the original 30GB as primary slave for storing data.
>
>It's not a gaming machine.
>
>Since then I've noticed it seems to be slower starting up, starting programs and
>in particular it's slower accessing sounds. Example, if I try to delete
>something, it would pause for about 2-3 seconds before playing chord.wav to
>alert me to the yes/no box on the screen.
>
>I've turned off all the sounds and that's made a difference.
>
>Could it just be that the older 4GB disk is so much slower than the 30GB one?

It definitely is much slower and without question will
account for multiple times longer I/O. 2-3 seconds seems
like a long time though, is the drive defragged and is DMA
enabled on both drives/controller per Device Manager?

Otherwise unaccounted for pauses can be caused by bad IDE
cables, if you have a spare handy and nothing else helps,
try swapping cables. 4GB drive is getting up there in age
too, you might run the HDD manufacturer's utilities to
confirm drive health... ideally you'd not want to use such
an old drive for (anything) for reliability reasons in
addition to performance reasons.

Also consider that in some situations that if your 2nd drive
is asleep, spun-down, deleting something on the 1st drive
may cause the second to spin-up, with a wait while that
happens. You could listen closely to the drives with case
cover off or deliberately read files from 2nd drive to be
sure it's spinning, just prior to testing the delete-pause
scenario again to see if there's still that pause.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Christopher Pollard wrote:

> My system is a Cel 1.7, 256 MB, asus mb (can't remember exact model) with built
> in everything.
>
> It used to be ok but I found Iwas running short of disk space. Since it was in a
> mess anyway, I decided to start over using a spare 4GB as primary master for the
> OS and program files and the original 30GB as primary slave for storing data.
>
> It's not a gaming machine.
>
> Since then I've noticed it seems to be slower starting up, starting programs and
> in particular it's slower accessing sounds. Example, if I try to delete
> something, it would pause for about 2-3 seconds before playing chord.wav to
> alert me to the yes/no box on the screen.
>
> I've turned off all the sounds and that's made a difference.
>
> Could it just be that the older 4GB disk is so much slower than the 30GB one?
>

Yes, it's a *lot* slower. And a drive that old might not even support UDMA.
At best it would be UDAM33; not that UDAM66 would help as the drive itself
is too slow for it to make any difference.

You didn't mention what O.S. but, presuming it's Win2K or XP, those two
begin to slow with less than 25% unused disk space and with only 4 gig
holding the O.S. and program files I'd suspect you're in that area. And
with 256 meg of RAM it's possible your system is using a fair amount of
page file, which will aggravate the problem with an extremely slow drive,
like that 4 gig, as it swaps things in and out.

2-3 seconds sound like a pretty long delay for the drive alone to explain
it but I guess the proof is in the pudding, although it's possible the
drive is having more problems than just being slow. Might be near failing.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:42:37 +0800, Christopher Pollard <rubbish@cginternet.net>
wrote:


Forgot to mention that winamp (running from the 4GB but files are onthe 30GB)
stutters when launching other programs, or even when accessing some websites.


--
Chris Pollard


CG Internet café, Tagum City, Philippines
http://www.cginternet.net

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 10:08:15 -0600, David Maynard <dNOTmayn@ev1.net> wrote:

>> Could it just be that the older 4GB disk is so much slower than the 30GB one?
>>

>You didn't mention what O.S. but, presuming it's Win2K or XP,

Win98SE.

>drive is having more problems than just being slow. Might be near failing.

Might be. I guess I'll try a new one then. Been thinking about it anyway, now
that it's getting full again...

Thanks.
--
Chris Pollard


CG Internet café, Tagum City, Philippines
http://www.cginternet.net

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Christopher Pollard wrote:

> On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 10:08:15 -0600, David Maynard <dNOTmayn@ev1.net> wrote:
>
>
>>>Could it just be that the older 4GB disk is so much slower than the 30GB one?
>>>
>
>
>>You didn't mention what O.S. but, presuming it's Win2K or XP,
>
>
> Win98SE.
>
>
>>drive is having more problems than just being slow. Might be near failing.
>
>
> Might be. I guess I'll try a new one then. Been thinking about it anyway, now
> that it's getting full again...
>
> Thanks.

Win98SE can exhibit a similar slow down when it gets near 'full' if you're
using the default swap file settings, I.E. let windows manage, and don't
defrag regularly because it gets fragmented all over the hard drive and
seek times are very slow. This, btw, is why pre-allocating a fixed swap
file space, by setting min and max to the same value, speeds win98SE up
(assuming it's using swap). Windows allocates a contiguous block of disk
space when you do that (since the size is 'fixed') that is no only easier
for it to find data in but is all in one nice compact location and doesn't
get fragmented.

Although, 256 meg is a pretty robust memory environment for win98SE so it
shouldn't be favoring swap file use unless you're running something large.