Is S.M.A.R.T. accurate?

[shawn]

I've got old computers in the office. I've installed HDD Health on a few
machines. Trying to finally get new computers and thought this might help
convince them.

On two machines the health has been constant 34% listed as Critical.

One of them went down to 30% and my computer went up to 38% health.

I can understand health going down, but how does one get better?

 

[DL]

Just an observation;
Why would you need a new PC because the hd needs replacing?
The drive manufacturer have free checking utilities on their sites

 

[JS]

I've got old computers in the office. I've installed HDD Health on a few
machines. Trying to finally get new computers and thought this might help
convince them.

On two machines the health has been constant 34% listed as Critical.

One of them went down to 30% and my computer went up to 38% health.

I can understand health going down, but how does one get better?

Each drive manufacture's smart data varies somewhat.
For example the "RAW" values for Power On can
represent hours or minutes based on who mage the drive.

There are also variation on how many S.M.A.R.T values
are available. No utility is in my opinion 100% reliable but
I have found that SpeedFan is fairly good at showing your
S.M.A.R.T. status with their online analyzer.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

 

[shawn]

I need a new computer because I am using an old 2.0Ghz machine.. it's got a
crap video card and it's not even dual core.. heck, it's not even a Pentium
D or anything.

Also, the computer is only 20GB hard drive, might even be 5400RPM, and crap
cache.

Our computers take about 5 to 10 minutes to start up in the morning before
things are even usable. It's not that they're overloaded with stuff,
although I do have a lot of different things installed.

While graphic editing an 8.5" x 11" page at a decent resolution for print,
my computer really slows. I can hardly multitask.

Starting Firefox takes about 30 seconds to 1 minute before I can even start
to type an address. Then when I type it pauses for another 30 seconds or so
before I can finish.

Opening Excel 2007 sometimes takes me 1 to 1.5 minutes.

I'm the only one with 1GB memory, everyone else has 512MB I believe. We all
run XP Pro.

The owners said they would get us new computers.. it's just a matter of
when. The more things I present as a reason why we need computers might
finally get them.

 

[Bob I]

If I had to make a guess, I'd say the PC's are accessing the drives in
POI mode instead of DMA. This switch is caused by read errors. I'd
suggest you check into that. (Device Manager, IDE Controller, Primary
IDE channel, Properties, Advanced Settings)

 

[JS]

I need a new computer because I am using an old 2.0Ghz machine.. it's got a
crap video card and it's not even dual core.. heck, it's not even a Pentium
D or anything.

Also, the computer is only 20GB hard drive, might even be 5400RPM, and
crap cache.

Our computers take about 5 to 10 minutes to start up in the morning before
things are even usable. It's not that they're overloaded with stuff,
although I do have a lot of different things installed.

While graphic editing an 8.5" x 11" page at a decent resolution for print,
my computer really slows. I can hardly multitask.

Starting Firefox takes about 30 seconds to 1 minute before I can even
start to type an address. Then when I type it pauses for another 30
seconds or so before I can finish.

Opening Excel 2007 sometimes takes me 1 to 1.5 minutes.

I'm the only one with 1GB memory, everyone else has 512MB I believe. We
all run XP Pro.

The owners said they would get us new computers.. it's just a matter of
when. The more things I present as a reason why we need computers might
finally get them.

I see your point. Talk to the owners and
remind them that with Windows 7 being
released on Oct. 22nd it not very likely they
will find any new computers with XP installed.

They (the owners) may find some good deals
on Windows 7 based PCs with some models
supporting virtualization and XP mode support
if you need to run XP based applications that are
not compatible with Vista or Windows 7 computers
that do not support XP mode.

Your other option if you absolutely need XP is a dual
boot system (as long as you can locate XP drivers for
that new PC).

 

[DL]

Currently one sys I have is an Athlon 3800, hardly state of the art, it runs
Office 2007, and other Offic type apps fine it does have 2gb memory
Previously it had 1 gb and an even earlier amd cpu, there is v.little
noticible performance increase in its current state
Having too little free space on a sys will cause performance issues, dual
core will to make little impact on Office, nor will memory above 512mb
I would guess your primary problem is the hd size, and yes a 20gb drive will
be v.old and probably a prime candidate for failure

 

[shawn]

Device 0 is using UDMA Mode 5 and Device 2 says Not Applicable. I don't have
two hard drives, so I guess that's why one is not applicable.

For the second IDE it's using UDMA Mode 2 and Mode 4. I'm guessing those are
my CD drive and burner.

 

[shawn]

I do have just over 4GB hard drive space free and I do defrag every once in
awhile.

I don't have a lot of stuff that runs in the background, even though I have
a bunch of different things installed.

Looking at my CPU at idle it can range from 2% usage up to maybe 12 or 14%..
not sure why, but just now it went up to 70%.. it never went that high
again. So, it avarages 2% up to 14% say and if I jiggle the mouse I can get
it to jump as high as 31% or so.

For Excel, it will start faster if I disable the add-on I have installed,
but for other programs I'd have no idea. Thunderbird, Outlook, Firefox,
Internet Explorer, GiMP (graphic editing program), Spybot Search & Destroy,
etc.

 

[shawn]

Could this be a problem?

I went to Control Panel, System, Advanced, User Profiles. In there I notice
my user profile is 2.91GB.

How come that is so big?

 

[shawn]

Nevermind that.. that's not an issue. That takes into account files on my
desktop, which I had recently downloaded Abobe Flash Pro CS4 trial, so I
deleted those.

 

[shawn]

BTW, I have brought up the Windows thing because right now they offer
downgrades to XP Pro for $99 additional.

I've always been fairly current with my computers at home.. usually build
them myself. Vista is the first Windows I can say I've never owned since
Windows 3.11.