SATA drive extremely slow, high CPU usage

[Peter Bremer]

Hi all,

What is wrong when my SATA HDD is extremely slow, and uses lots of CPU
during disk benchmarks?

Following a list of symptoms:
- HD Tach and DiskSpeed32 give more or less the same results, 1.7 MB/s
transfer rate, 15ms access time, and 50% CPU usage!
- 50% CPU usage when running HD Tach or DiskSpeed even while NOT
performing a benchmark. (With HD Tach, only after running a benchmark,
with DiskSpeed32 as soon as the program is started.)
- Once in a while (maybe 1 in 10 times), the harddisk does not boot
even though it is detected by BIOS.
- SpeedFan reports SMART Fitness at 97% and Performance at 98%.
- SpeedFan shows decent temperatures during normal use and during
benchmarking: 35 deg C CPU and 39 deg C harddisk.
- Once in a while (maybe once per week) I get a BSOD, but I don't know
if this is related.
- For a short period (one or two weeks) I had much better performance
after connecting the disk to another SATA port on the motherboard, but
after that performance dropped again.
- Updating the BIOS did not help.

The PC is a home theater system (HTPC) being build up, so it is not
used very heavily, so I haven't noticed exactly when the system
started performing so badly. (Performance is still enough for playing
music and compressed video.)

System specs:
- Harddisk: Samsung SP2504C
- DVD: LG GSA-H62N (also SATA)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
- CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350

 

[Dave]

Hi all,

What is wrong when my SATA HDD is extremely slow, and uses lots of CPU
during disk benchmarks?

bad SATA drivers for the motherboard, or lower level drivers for the
motherboard

 

[Michael Hawes]

bad SATA drivers for the motherboard, or lower level drivers for the
motherboard

Check in Device Manager that drive is using DMA not PIO. If in PIO mode
and unable to change, search registry for 'noide' as this is set if there is
a problem with DMA access. If you find it, set value to 0.

Mike.

 

[Paul]

Hi all,

What is wrong when my SATA HDD is extremely slow, and uses lots of CPU
during disk benchmarks?

Following a list of symptoms:
- HD Tach and DiskSpeed32 give more or less the same results, 1.7 MB/s
transfer rate, 15ms access time, and 50% CPU usage!
- 50% CPU usage when running HD Tach or DiskSpeed even while NOT
performing a benchmark. (With HD Tach, only after running a benchmark,
with DiskSpeed32 as soon as the program is started.)
- Once in a while (maybe 1 in 10 times), the harddisk does not boot
even though it is detected by BIOS.
- SpeedFan reports SMART Fitness at 97% and Performance at 98%.
- SpeedFan shows decent temperatures during normal use and during
benchmarking: 35 deg C CPU and 39 deg C harddisk.
- Once in a while (maybe once per week) I get a BSOD, but I don't know
if this is related.
- For a short period (one or two weeks) I had much better performance
after connecting the disk to another SATA port on the motherboard, but
after that performance dropped again.
- Updating the BIOS did not help.

The PC is a home theater system (HTPC) being build up, so it is not
used very heavily, so I haven't noticed exactly when the system
started performing so badly. (Performance is still enough for playing
music and compressed video.)

System specs:
- Harddisk: Samsung SP2504C
- DVD: LG GSA-H62N (also SATA)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
- CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350

CRC errors can result in the driver using a lower transfer rate.
Your benchmark is slow enough to be in PIO mode.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

I'd probably try jumpering the drive for operation at 1.5Gbit/sec,
if that option is available and makes sense. I.e. Even if the
drive is 3Gbit/sec and the motherboard supports 3Gbit/sec, you
can check to see if there is a jumper option for the drive that
will force it to 1.5Gbit/sec. Then see if performance drops over
time again or not.

Paul