Hard drive freezes and stuttering?

[rxmorph]

Hi, I recently installed a new Samsung HD321KJ 320Gig SATA II 16MB drive and it's been completely freezing up on my when I run Performance Test (benchmarking program). It freezes every time I run a WRITE benchmark on it...it does fine with the READING benchmark. Also, I have been getting 'stuttering' with my mouse and music when installing simple programs and performing simple tasks with this hard drive. I never had these issues with an older Western Digital 80Gig Sata I 8MB drive that I'm now using along with this for extra space. I should probably mention that I have been able to run the HD benchmarks within FreshDiagnose program without an issue. My BIOS is up-to-date and as far as I know, everything else should be too. There have also been a few instances where it has set on the Windows loading screen (one with the bar) long enough for the bar to pass 50 - 85 times....and other times where it only passes like 8.

I also ran Spinrite 6 and it found nothing wrong with the hard drive. Basically I would like to fix the 'stuttering' and get a consistent (fairly quick boot-up speed). If you need any other information in helping diagnose this problem, please feel free to ask.

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

Sounds similiar to my Raptor's case. But, I'm sadly not of any help. I don't know hdds that well. Sorry....

 

[zenmaster]

Best to post Mobo Details, etc...
There may be some known issues with the board and or chipset.

 

[rxmorph]

Seems like I haven't been having much luck with HDs lately. I had to RMA a Raptor that was DOA I order a few weeks ago, Eucharistadorer...but that's another story entirely.

I've been running some more benchmarks on my HDs with the FreshDiagnose program and my results have been anywhere from 4.xx/250.xx to 24.xx/1400.xx Avg. write/read respectively on the Samsung Sata II 320Gig. It seems that the results have been a bit more consistent on the WD Sata I 80Gig. I've been benching in around ~20.xx read and write on that hard drive. I have tried swapping and switching SATA plugs on the Mobo and even completely unplugging the 80Gig and swapping sata cables and still I have the same results. I don't know how much I trust the FreshDiagnose program since my drive obviously isn't performing THAT slow, but I'll give it some credit due to the consistency of the 80Gig.

Any other ideas?

 

[migz15]

I think we both have the same problem when i installed another 80 Gig sata extra for (game) space. the problem is also like that stutters, slow reading. my solution is find which port is the sata 1 and sata 2. then connect your system harddisk (the one with the OS) into the Sata 1 port and the extra harddisk to the 2nd sata port. That solves my problem and its all back to normal.. maybe its the mobos architecture. i thought my HD was doomed till i found the solution. I hope this will help you

 

[rxmorph]

Alright zenmaster, I'll post a summary of my information below. It may be a little more information than you want, but I hope it helps. Thanks.


--------[ Summary ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name
User Name

Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon 64, 2000 MHz (10 x 200) 3200+
Motherboard Name Epox EP-9NPAJ / 9NPA+ / 9NPA+ Ultra (3 PCI, 3 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce4, AMD Hammer
System Memory 1024 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (08/11/06)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter RADEON X850 XT Secondary (256 MB)
Video Adapter RADEON X850 XT (256 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon X850 XT (R480)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (8342438300458)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter nVIDIA MCP04 - Audio Codec Interface

Storage:
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce4 ADMA Controller
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce4 ADMA Controller
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce4 Parallel ATA Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive SAMSUNG HD321KJ (298 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive WDC WD800JD-00HKA0 (74 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive HP DVD Writer 840x
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 305242 MB (290047 MB free)
D: (NTFS) 76308 MB (17180 MB free)
Total Size 372.6 GB (300.0 GB free)

Input:
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse HID-compliant mouse

Network:
Network Adapter NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller - Packet Scheduler Miniport

Peripherals:
USB1 Controller nVIDIA MCP04 - OHCI USB Controller
USB2 Controller nVIDIA MCP04 - EHCI USB 2.0 Controller
USB Device American Power Conversion USB UPS
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
Battery HID UPS Battery

 

[rxmorph]

Here is a little more detailed look at my HDs:


--------[ ATA ]----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ SAMSUNG HD321KJ (S0MQJ1GP509597) ]

ATA Device Properties:
Model ID SAMSUNG HD321KJ
Revision CP100-10
Parameters 620181 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track, 554 bytes per sector
LBA Sectors 625142448
Buffer 16 MB (Dual Ported, Read Ahead)
Multiple Sectors 16
ECC Bytes 4
Max. PIO Transfer Mode PIO 4
Max. UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 6 (ATA-133)
Active UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 0
Unformatted Capacity 330285 MB

ATA Device Features:
SMART Supported
Security Mode Supported
Power Management Supported
Advanced Power Management Not Supported
Write Cache Supported
Host Protected Area Supported
Power-Up In Standby Not Supported
Automatic Acoustic Management Supported
48-bit LBA Supported
Device Configuration Overlay Supported

ATA Device Manufacturer:
Company Name Samsung
Product Information http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/index.htm

[ WDC WD800JD-00HKA0 (WD-WMAJ94139979) ]

ATA Device Properties:
Model ID WDC WD800JD-00HKA0
Revision 13.03G13
Parameters 155061 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector
LBA Sectors 156301488
Buffer 8 MB
Multiple Sectors 16
ECC Bytes 58
Max. PIO Transfer Mode PIO 4
Max. UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 6 (ATA-133)
Active UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 6 (ATA-133)
Unformatted Capacity 76319 MB

ATA Device Features:
SMART Supported
Security Mode Supported
Power Management Supported
Advanced Power Management Not Supported
Write Cache Supported
Host Protected Area Supported
Power-Up In Standby Not Supported
Automatic Acoustic Management Supported
48-bit LBA Not Supported
Device Configuration Overlay Supported

ATA Device Manufacturer:
Company Name Western Digital Corporation
Product Information http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey migz15, thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I didn't have much luck matching the Sata 1 and sata 2 port up with the corresponding boot order, but I'm still going to keep messing with it. Thanks.

 

[rxmorph]

Well, I've tired just about all the different combinations there are for plugging these two drives up and all give me the same result. I don't know what's wrong here. I've tested the 320 (OS drive) with Spinrite and many 'in-Windows' programs and they all say the drive is fine and performing normally - no errors or damaged sectors, etc. However, when I'm downloading a big file or installing something to/on the drive I get a periodic stutter in my music and sometimes mouse until the download or installation is complete. It also tends to stutter a bit when I log into windows and it's loading all the programs, etc. I've just tried new Sata cables on both drives and got the same thing. Does anyone have a clue to what might be causing this? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[rxmorph]

Ok, I think I've figured out what has been causing all the stuttering. After reformatting, installing xp again, and trying to do a process of elimination deal on my drivers and software I've came to this conclusion: Apparently any software that acesses your temperature sensors on your hardware (or at least HARD DRIVES) will do this. I say this because I'm only getting the stuttering now when I have one of these open. I've tested it with Everest, Speedfan, HDD Thermometer(this one seems to cause the most stuttering), and HD Tune. I don't remember this stuttering occurring when I used to run programs like this on my 80Gig, but I never ran them as much as I have on this one. I hope this helps if someone else is experiencing the same kind of problem.

Is it normal for these types of programs to cause such stuttering though?

 

[redguy666]

Hey thnx man. I've got exactly the same problem... got a new Western Digital 320 GB SATA II 16MB drive and put my old one as secondary to hold my music and videos.

When playing the music, every now and then it stuttered and I thought there was either a driver or SATA channel problem. You saved me a lot of time testing it out...

Now I know that the S.M.A.R.T. functionality of SpeedFan was causing the problem. I've added the /NOSMARTSCAN to the shortcut and now the stuttering is gone.

 

[Zorg]

Model ID SAMSUNG HD321KJ
Max. UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 6 (ATA-133)
Active UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 0

Model ID WDC WD800JD-00HKA0

Max. UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 6 (ATA-133)
Active UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 6 (ATA-133)

It appears that your Samsung drive is not running in DMA for whatever reason. Go into the Device manager and set it to DMA mode not PIO mode.