Whats interfering with my new SATA drive??

Synchro

Distinguished
Apr 24, 2007
2
0
18,510
I'm having a problem with my new SATA 250gb hard drive.
I put fresh copy of XP pro SP1 on it and benched it using HDTach looks great then few days later
I was playing a DOOM3 and noticed that it was lagging a bit.
I benched it again and now it's running alot slower like something
is interfering with the hard drive. it's been about 4 days ive had XP
on it. Heres a pic; the blue line looks great! now the red line is all up and down.
-I used process explorer and cant find anything that would cause a problem.
-Removed a few things from msconfig.
-Updated to the latest VIA Arena drivers.
-Checked that write-caching is on in device properties.
-Used speedfan to check SMART status, all good
The "safely remove hardware" icon is in my taskbar and tells me that i can remove my C:\ drive
I think XP thinks that it's a hot swap drive and has disabled write-caching even though device
manager says it's on. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it..
Other than that everything seems to work fine!
Ive posted a screen shot of my HDTach result on my wifes flikr heres the link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94092182@N00/471001226/

I know you guys are the best !
Is there anything I can do? Is this normal?

Thanks!

ASROCK 4COREDUAL-VSTA
P4 3GHZ 1MBL2
1GB DUAL DDR
ATI x1950 PRO
SATA 250GB WD2500KS 7200/16MB
450w PSU
 

1Tanker

Splendid
Apr 28, 2006
4,645
1
22,780
I'm having a problem with my new SATA 250gb hard drive.
I put fresh copy of XP pro SP1 on it and benched it using HDTach looks great then few days later
I was playing a DOOM3 and noticed that it was lagging a bit.
I benched it again and now it's running alot slower like something
is interfering with the hard drive. it's been about 4 days ive had XP
on it. Heres a pic; the blue line looks great! now the red line is all up and down.
-I used process explorer and cant find anything that would cause a problem.
-Removed a few things from msconfig.
-Updated to the latest VIA Arena drivers.
-Checked that write-caching is on in device properties.
-Used speedfan to check SMART status, all good
The "safely remove hardware" icon is in my taskbar and tells me that i can remove my C:\ drive
I think XP thinks that it's a hot swap drive and has disabled write-caching even though device
manager says it's on. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it..
Other than that everything seems to work fine!
Ive posted a screen shot of my HDTach result on my wifes flikr heres the link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94092182@N00/471001226/

I know you guys are the best !
Is there anything I can do? Is this normal?

Thanks!

ASROCK 4COREDUAL-VSTA
P4 3GHZ 1MBL2
1GB DUAL DDR
ATI x1950 PRO
SATA 250GB WD2500KS 7200/16MB
450w PSU
That's a wild result. :eek: I don't think it's spyware or anything of that nature....HDTach shows CPU usage@ 2%...a very good result. Did you do a checkdisk, then defrag? A defrag will probably cut some of the peaks/valleys down a bit, but checkdisk might find something else wrong. GL :)
 

Synchro

Distinguished
Apr 24, 2007
2
0
18,510
Ok I fixed it! I couldnt figure it out for the longest time.
I did the usual stuff like chkdsk defrag, then installed XP SP2 and noticed write caching was disabled after enabling it, the bechmarks went back to there original smooth speed.

If you have SATA make sure your write caching is on! : )

Thanks guys!