Dennis wrote:
> > I have a pc a few months old now. It seems slow to respond.
> Motherboard is Asus M4A785TD-VEVO, processor is AMD Phenom II 945
> quad core 3.0 GHz, the memory is 4.0 gig of DDR3. It has Windows
> XP Pro SP3 with all updates. When I click on a desktop icon it may
> be 30+ seconds until that program loads and is usable. I have older
> computers with less memory and smaller processors that are quicker
> to open a program. The hard drive is only 25% usage and gets defragged
> every night.
> >
> > Any suggestions appreciated...
I would start with HDTune.
http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe
Check the SMART statistics for your hard drive, to make sure it is OK.
Also, run the "benchmark" tab. If you get a gently sloping curve, with anywhere
from 65MB/sec to 130MB/sec at the beginning of the curve, chances are
things are fine. If you see a flat line at 7MB/sec, you're likely in PIO
mode.
This is a benchmark for my drive, in SATA I and SATA II modes, and
both cases give a lot more than 7MB/sec, so I know I'm not stuck in
PIO mode. The beginning of the curve here, is in the neighborhood of
125MB/sec.
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8...scomposite.gif
Windows will drop the interface to PIO mode, if excessive CRC errors
are detected.
On modern computers, the disk storage system is a limiting hardware component.
Abnormally slow operation there, can make the machine seem slow. That's
where I'd start.
You have a quad core. If a single threaded app went crazy, it might tie up one
core to 100%, leaving three other cores. You can check Task Manager, to see
if that is an issue or not. You can also check whether RAM usage is
abnormal or not, while you're in there.
There are cases, where a driver issue, causes events to get lost, and
attempts to access the disk, are met with a "timeout" interval before
the disk response. There was an SIS chipset that did that. But first,
I'd check to see if the disk light is flashing slowly, during the 30 second
interval, suggesting it is just PIO mode operation leading to real
slow load times.
Paul
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