Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed

[johnvmc]

I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and
was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the
cross post.

I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over
the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in performance
to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk read. I've
looked at a number of different potential problems from DMA/PIO to
malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of info on my blog
at http://foris.blogspot.com/ and would sincerely appreciate whatever
ideas you may have on how to go about troubleshooting this problem.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and
was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the
cross post.

I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over
the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in
performance to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk
read. I've looked at a number of different potential problems from
DMA/PIO to malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of
info on my blog at http://foris.blogspot.com/ and would sincerely
appreciate whatever ideas you may have on how to go about
troubleshooting this problem.

Download the hard disk drive manufacturer's diagnostic utilities...
Run them to ensure you are not having issues related to the drive dying...

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

(SeaTools for Windows has replaced SeaTools Online and PowerMax. SeaTools
for DOS can test Seagate or Maxtor Parallel ATA (PATA and IDE) and Serial
ATA (SATA) interface disc drives. Because the software boots to its own
operating system you can test your drive regardless of the OS installed on
it. You can even test a new or completely blank drive.)

Since you are deep into troubleshooting this - you miught be best off making
an exact image of the system NOW (Ghost, TrueImage, BootItNG, etc) to an
external hard disk drive of sufficient size and trying a clean install -
just to see if it truly is something to do with your configuration at all.
If it works okay in the clean install - you know that it is
software/drivers/conflicts... If it works the same - you are likely dealing
with a hardware issue.

 

[JS]

Try HD Tune, provides drive info and has an option to test your drive.
http://www.hdtune.com/

There is a utility that worth looking into if you want more info about
S.M.A.R.T.
The SMART tab displays current smart info on the drive you select and at
your option provides an on-line analysis of the drive.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

PassMark's BurnInTest which has options to perform numerous test including
the Disk: http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm

Autoruns from the MS Windows SysInternals site:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx

AutoRuns will show/list all apps/etc. that load/run when you first boot
(Boot Execute tab),
when you logon (Logon tab) and other programs that load (grouped by labeled
tabs) for easy viewing.

It also provides the ability to selectively allows you to stop (use with
care) any program that you don't want to load. You can undo any changes you
have made.

Note: To get additional details on an item in the list you may need to
highlight the item (right click) and use the 'Search Online' option to get
the details, especially useful for the more obscure items in the list.

Take a look at CCleaner as a tool to remove Internet history info, cookies,
temp files, auto complete and other junk. In the 'Windows' tab listing check
the item types you want deleted. This will free up space on the disk.
Also available is customization, see Options/Custom to add any
other/additional folders you want files deleted from.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

JS

 

[Daave]

I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and
was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the
cross post.

I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over
the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in performance
to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk read. I've
looked at a number of different potential problems from DMA/PIO to
malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of info on my blog
at http://foris.blogspot.com/ and would sincerely appreciate whatever
ideas you may have on how to go about troubleshooting this problem.

In case you didn't see my response in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain, here it is again:

Daave & Gerry,

Thanks a ton for the suggestions. I've spent a couple of days
attempting to research the suggestions that you made and came up with
a ton of new information but no solution. In order to be able to post
everything I moved it over to another site.

If ANYONE can be of assistance in this matter I would greatly
apprciate it. Please check out my pathetic attempt at a blog at
http://foris.blogspot.com/ and see if you can lend a hand.

Some other ideas:

Have you checked the HDD for errors? Have you run the manufacturer's
hard drive utility? It sounds like you have a hardware problem (I
thought the drive was in PIO mode!). But in case it isn't...

Have you used Process Explorer? Available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

You said you scanned for viruses. What did you use? Remember that "the
generic microsoft malware program" (are you referring to Windows
Defender?) handles spyware but not viruses, worms, trojans, etc. If you
haven't done so, do a thorough check for viruses.

 

[johnvmc]

Thanks, Daave. I'm actually looking at it now. I've had some other
things going on so I had to take a couple of days off and get back to
work but I started debugging the problem again tonight.

The DISCover utility is still a worry to me. I think it's an HP DM
product. I also noted that my ZoneAlarm subscription had expired so I
renewed it and updated all my virus / spyware definitions. I also
downloaded a new vidoe driver which seems to have superficially sped
things up at least.

I'll let you know if I see anything else interesting in the process
explorer (GREAT APP) and thanks again for all the good ideas.

 

[johnvmc]

I decided it was silly to make you gusy do the leg work so here's the
post from the blog minus the screenshots I included over there. Thanks
for the feedback so far. Looks like there's already some new ideas to
pursue.

The following is the description of the wondrous journey of a new
HPm7674n its 200gb Seagate drive that's dropping down to 0.4mbs. The
problem wasn't terribly noticeable at first but has seemed to get
worse and worse as the months have gone by.

I originally posted the problem on the microsoft here. I got a couple
of good suggestions and follow up information from the two people who
replied and that set me off on a long series of tests in order to try
and find out what was going on. Unfortunately the problem is
persisting and I've decided to move a lot of the information
associated with the problem to here so I can post more than I could on
a message group.

The system is running Zone Alarm Pro and the generic microsoft malware
program from their support site so I feel relatively confidant in
saying that this is not a virus or spyware issue. The problem
manifests itself in INCREDIBLY long loading times for applications and
in some case documents. Startup can take anywhere from 5 - 10 minutes
as all of the services and applications load. From the initial post
and information published on the XP group I thought we had a winner in
the drive potentially having been switched from DMA to PIO due to disk
errors. Unfortunately everything I checked indicates that the drives
remain in UDMA-5 and the CPU looks untouched when the disk is reading.

There have been a couple of "weird" problems with the HP since I
picked it up several months ago. The ESCI was setup with resource
conflicts between some drivers and devices and had to be reset
manually. Presumably this was done during the setup of the machine at
the factory and was never reset to the represent the new devices.
While trying to find anything else that may have been causing this
issue I did note that the bios was set up to recognize the dual 200gb
drives as raid disks but the raid controller from Intel as part of the
Intel Application Accelerator didn't have any raid partitions created.
Some sources suggested that it might be the IAA itself that would
cause these kinds of atrociously slow read times so I uninstalled it,
still without making any kind of a difference. Now that IAA is gone
though I can at least directly access the drive properties through the
Device Manager to check on their setup.

So far I've rescanned the computer for viruses and malware, checked
the fragmentation level, reset the BIOS to non-raid and from AHCI to
IDE, uninstalled IAA, and run HD Tune and HD Tach both of which
confirm that drive performance is dropping to <1mbs> Just to answer
another question: The free space on the drive is roughly 25% at 44.9gb
of a 200gb drive.

If anyone can provide some assistance or ideas on how to go about
resolving this problem I would extraordinarily grateful.

For a sense of what I'm seeing look below...


This is the view of the CPU stats from task manager while one of those
ridiculously slow reads is taking place. At the time this was taken
the HD was below 1mbs.










And in case someone notices anything that escaped my attention here is
the shot of all running processes and information from task manager
when this was going on.













Full System Info:
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service
Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061
System Model: RK505AA-ABA m7674n
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM


Error Logs:
I have a TON of identical errors under IntelDH
"Could not attach to EL Acpi driver."
IntelQRTD ID 7

I'm also getting a ton of errors in the system event log for
"The Remote Access Connection Manager service depends on the Telephony
service which failed to start because of the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or
because it has no enabled devices associated with it. "
Service Control Manager ID 7001

Again, ANY help would be appreciated here

 

[Daave]

The DISCover utility is still a worry to me. I think it's an HP DM
product.

Digital Interactive Systems Corporation is responsible for the three
DISC entries from your Task Manager screen shot. See:

DiscUpdateMgr.exe
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/DiscUpdateMgr.exe-15124.html

Definitely not required to run on startup.

You will find you have a lot of those. The best way to disable them is
usually not through msconfig, but through the options of the particular
application you're concerned with. But msconfig should work as a last
resort. Just remember, sometimes the pesky little startups can return on
their own if you disable using msconfig (the QuickTime tray icon is a
classic example).

These two sites should have just about every entry:

Startup Programs Database
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/

TASK LIST PROGRAMS
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Otherwise, Google will help.

 

[Daave]

I also noted that my ZoneAlarm subscription had expired so I
renewed it and updated all my virus / spyware definitions.

For whatever it's worth, newer versions of ZoneAlarm use lots of
resources. May or may not be an issue in your case. Personally, I'd stay
away from it and use alternatives with much smaller footprints (e.g.,
Comodo for firewall, AVG or Avast for antivirus).

Also, you may interested in this thread:

"VSMON consumes more and more memory"
http://forums.zonealarm.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=9442

 

[Daave]

For whatever it's worth, newer versions of ZoneAlarm use lots of
resources. May or may not be an issue in your case. Personally, I'd
stay
away from it and use alternatives with much smaller footprints (e.g.,
Comodo for firewall, AVG or Avast for antivirus).

Also, you may interested in this thread:

"VSMON consumes more and more memory"

http://forums.zonealarm.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=9442

And another:

scanningprocess.exe
http://www.castlecops.com/t178492-scanningprocess_exe.html