Extremely slow disc reads and writes in Windows XP

[Timmot]

Read and write speeds with all disc drives are extremely slow - IDE, SCSI, Ext. 1394

Everything is detected correctly. All the SCSI devices sync @ 160. Have done tests with nothing else but only one single ATA drive attached (the 200Gig Seagate) and get the same results. No matter the configuration, I get the same results.

I have used several drive speed test tools booted directy to Dos and all my drives pass all functionality tests, and perform at (close to) their rated drive speeds. Read tests, write tests, scan tests, random reads/writes all good. Around 46 to 50MB/sec for the IDE drives. Around 73 to 78MB/sec on the SCSI drives.

All drives have been defragged. The SCSI drives have even been low-levelled and then tested. All tests perform the same whether I use small or large files, and single or multiple files.

When booted normally in XP, all file transfers (copies/moves) from using Explorer from and to any drive (even to/from the same drive) only go at about 4MBytes/sec. Using robocopy from a Dos prompt goes at about 7.3MB/sec. Using Windows based drive diags reports that the read speed is 7MB/sec and write speed is 11.4MB/sec ON ALL the drives (They all get the same speed results - What the hell?). This is the same result from any of the diag tools I have used (HD Tune, HDD Speed Test Tool, Sandra 2007)

If I create a share, go to another PC, and transfer files to one of those drives, I get about 8 to 9MB/sec. And if I do a FTP transfer (up/down from either PC) I get 11 to 12MB/sec.

I have been all through Dell's, MS's, Seagate's, WD's and Intel's support pages. I have been through Dell's phone support and have been excalated through their ranks. Seagate's too. I been through butt loads of forums, and cannot find anything like this or any solutions.

I have tested with write caching on AND off. I updated the Mobo and SCSI controller BIOS. Have updated all the drivers for chipset, controllers, video, audio. Nothing has changed anything.

So, my questions are:
- What in all hell is going on here? I didn't even think that it would be possible to have different results depending on the app/service you use to transfer data (i.e. explorer copy vs robocopy). The FTP transfer being faster then a local file copy really bothers me.

- Most importantly. Why am I getting such a LO

http://WWWWWWWW

read/write speed on my drives? Especially THE SAME read/write speeds ON ALL of my drives?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

System configuration:

Dell Deminsion 4400 (Intel chipset) 1.6GHz
Windows XP Home SP2 with all updates
1GB PC266
1 Seagate ATA 40Gig
1 WD ATA 40Gig
1 Seagate ATA 200Gig
1 NEC 40x CD-RW
1 Ext. 1394 WD 250Gig
1 Ext. 1394 Sony DVD-RW
Adaptec 39160 SCSI controller (newest BIOS)
Rorke Data MaxArray Ultra 160 LVD srive array attached to the 39160
4 Seagate 73Gig Ultra160 LVD drives
Tripplite Multimode terminator
ATI Radeon 8500 64MB
100 Mbit NIC

Thanks

 

[Timmot]

By the way. I forgot to mention that there is absolutely no change whether or not I shut down any/all background services/apps.

Thanks

 

[satrow]

Hi Timmot, about the only things in common here are the Northbridge and PCI bus. Are they running standard XP chipset drivers or Intel Accelerator? Can you remove, rollback, update these?

If it was just the IDE drives giving slow performance, I would have expected them to be using PIO mode; this would be noticeable from boot onwards.

You have all file monitoring switched off during these tests (A/V, indexing, etc.)?

 

[Timmot]

satrow,

After a clean install of XP, with default included drivers - Same results.

After updating drivers from Dell - Same results.

After adding Intel Accelerator - (You guessed it) Same results.

Indexing is off. If available to turn off, Write back caching has been tried both on and off. System Restore monitoring is off. A/V is off. I have done tests with all non-critical services and processes off/disabled.

 

[stduc]

When reading/writing to disk what is the CPU usage?

Check the BIOS settings.

Check the drive settings in device manager.

These days I would have expected the drives to be working in UDMA mode, or perhaps PIO?

Basically, if the disks are not using DMA then they will be slow and the hint is that the CPU has to do all the work, so it will be at 100% during driver operations (read/write). So check for that. If the CPU usage is low during read write the problem lies elsewhere. If the CPU is not idle when it should be you have some other issue, such as a virus.

As you have done a clean install I would suspect that some BIOS setting is incorrect. But without more info on your BIOS I cannot say what. But I suspect something is forcing the disks to use the operating system to do all the work.

One way to make drives slow is to have a slow device as the master device on a cable. For instance having the CD Rom drive as master & the disk drive as slave on the same cable. This can stop the BIOS selecting the best data transfer mode during device detect at boot up.

Sorry I can't think of anything else. Hope this helps.

 

[satrow]

The machine is likely to be a few years old, do you know what it performed like previously?

Have you used the same CD for each install? There may have been some corruption during setup; anything in Windows/setuperr.log?

The system logs are not showing any errors related to disk or Atapi, SCSI etc.?

Assuming the board has AGP, you don't have a PCI card installed in the slot immediately below it, do you?

You've tried switching IDE cables for known good or new?

Can you test transfer speeds from a PE CD or a 'Live' Linux disc?

 

[Timmot]

Satrow,

All IDE drives report their proper UDMA modes. None are running PIO. CPU is not being used.

BIOS drive and bus settings are all on auto.

All the IDE drives are the same as far as DMA modes and all. The only drive that is slower is the cdrom. So I have tested with nothing but the newest and fastest drive alone. Have tested with the three HDs without the CDROM. And finally with all drives. But in any case that the cdrom is connected it is a slave.

The PCI slot next to the AGP slot contains my IEEE 1394 firewire card. But I have tested with all cards out except AGP craphics.

I have tried switching cables.

The only other OS I have used to test drive speeds is DOS using the Hiren Boot CD with numerous utils. They all report the proper speeds for all drives in any system configuration.

So it seems the issue is strictly contained within XP. All my installs have been from the Dell CDs. So I am going to try installing XP again from a OEM CD.

Thanks for your help.

TimmoT