PC Slow after installing 400GB hard drive

[IanGlinka]

Hello,

I am running a Windows XP SP2 machine (P4, 2ghz, 512 mb ram)..

Ever since I installed my new 400GB internal IDE hard drive, my machine has been operating EXTREMELY slowly. This is particularly noticable upon playback of music while my computer is doing ANYTHING else. The music slows down and almost sounds like a digital "grind" because it is moving so slowly...

I have also noticed that my mouse will momentarily pause when moving it around the screen ... once every 2 seconds or so, the mouse stutters and then resumes normal movement.

anyone ever heard of anythign like this happening before?

it's driving me CRAZY!!

Ian

 

[Freestone]

More information may help.
[ul][li]Is this the only drive now?[/li]
[li]If not the only drive, is it by itself on the IDE cable or is there another IDE device?[/li]
[li]How is the drive jumpered, and if not the only device on the IDE cable, have you verified complementary jumpering on the other device? (i.e. Master & Slave, or both Cable Select)[/li]
[li]Are you using 80-pin conductor IDE cables?[/li]
[li]Is this your OS drive?[/li]
[li]Have you looked in Event Viewer, System Log and Application Log for any error entries?[/li][/ul]

 

[cdogg]

If it's a secondary drive, see if removing it helps. If it does, then there is either something physically wrong with the drive, or it's not properly configured in the OS, at the jumper, or within the BIOS.

Like freestone said, we need more info to go any further.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[MadBandit]

depending on the rest of your system, it is quite possible that your power supply is what is causing the problem. it may not be able to provide the system with enough power on the necessary rails to runn all of your components.

it may just be a sign that your PSU is about to give up the ghost. i'd guess the system is at least 3-4 years old. PSUs don't last forever.

 

[cdogg]

While the PSU is a possibility in almost every situation, consider the fact that most hard drives consume less than 20 watts of power at peak operation, and much less when idle. At bootup, it spins up just enough for initial diagnostics and detection. The power draw here is not very high.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[IanGlinka]

If I'm listening to music at all, and I open any program or the computer has to "think" about something, the music gets VERY choppy like it's being digitally stretched or something.

Looking in task manager, the system idle process usually sits at 50-60 during these times, so it's not like there is one suspect program draining my system's resources.

I updated/ran Adaware, thinking maybe this was a result of spyware. It didn't find anything aside from the regular cookies in IE.

I verified that the jumpers on my hard drives are set correctly.

I have also tried numerous page file configurations (having it on C, having it on E (the 400GB drive).

I am so stuck... no clue what the heck the deal could be.

If anyone has any other ideas i would be thrilled to hear them...

Thanks so much
Ian

 

[ASG0856]

Is it formatted as NTFS?
Is the indexing service switched on for the drive?

because it reads like the computer is accessing the new drive everytime it wants to do something, and is 'searching' the whole drive

 

[IanGlinka]

It is formatted in NTFS. I remember when I formatted it, I used QUICK FORMAT in Computer Management > Disk Manager.

Indexing is turned on on both drives.

I'm going to try to let defrag run on both drives all day today, but the fact that this happened directly after I installed the new drive tells me it's something else causing this problem...

Ian

 

[cdogg]

If it's a secondary drive, see if removing it helps.

Still waiting for an answer here.

I understand you want the drive installed, but we need to know if removing it temporarily makes any difference. That would tell us if this is a Windows or hardware issue, since you claim the problem didn't start until AFTER you installed the new drive.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Freestone]

Looking in task manager, the system idle process usually sits at 50-60 during these times, so it's not like there is one suspect program draining my system's resources.

Heh? You are saying 40-50 percent of your processing time is being consumed and you don't see that as a problem? What is taking up so much of this processing power?

Also, you've neglected to answer some of my basic configuration questions.

 

[showtime1959]

trying to reinstall windows it wont let me its ntldr is missing can soeone tell me whatthat means i have a dell 4600

 

[americanmcneil]

Could this perhaps be a case of an EIDE drive using a standard 40 pin IDE cable instead of the 80 pin EIDE cable?

But I must agree with Cdogg, you really need to disconnect the drive and see if system performance picks back up before you go any farther.

 

[IanGlinka]

Okay ... I've FINALLY found some time to do this, and when the 400GB hard drive is removed, the problem disappears. I'm going to try different combinations of cables, primary/secondary channels now to see if I can achieve the holy grail: having the hard drive connected, while not obliterating performance!

Wish me luck! (and thank you to everyone for the extremely helpful suggestions!)

Ian

 

[IanGlinka]

Update: I connected the 400GB hard drive again, but this time I removed my CD drive and put it on the secondary IDE channel by itself (with an 80 conductor cable ... don't worry).

When I started my computer, the POST test stopped me with the following error message:

Sec Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace
Press <F4> to Resume

I'm pretty sure this is just a classic signal that the hard drive itself is bad. It would seem I bought the bad apple in the batch.

However, before I give up and try to get Best Buy to give me a replacement (I really really hope they will), I'm going to try a couple other last ditch things.

One thing to note here -- when I first installed the drive, I performed a "quick format" in Windows XP. I know back in the day, hard drives used to come with bad sectors built-in that would be flagged either when they were making the hard drive at the factory or during a format. I'm thinking that maybe this quick format was a little lazy and the hard drive wasn't able to be properly initialized.

I am also going to run a disk check in Windows to see if that somehow fixes the issue.

In the end, though, I'm probably going to have to just return this thing, cross my fingers, and start over. Ugh.

This is probably the last Seagate hard drive I'll buy.

Ian

 

[cdogg]

No, it's probably something you won't be able to fix.

The S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic checks a lot of things, and the way you format the drive won't have any impact. It's not always the most accurate diagnostic when it comes to catching a problem, but when it does, it's usually right that the drive is failing.

Here is a list of things that it checks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-M...orting_Technology#Known_S.M.A.R.T._attributes

Since the drive is fairly new, the manufacturer should replace it without hassle. I don't think BestBuy will do anything for you unless you purchased some kind of replacement warranty through them. Instead, go straight to the manufacturer's site, where you can usually punch in the model and serial numbers for support and directions.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[EmreY]

I have just encountered the same problem. I'm running on an AMD3700 2.2, with 2GB RAM, and just added a 400MB *SATA* drive.... and my system has slowed to a crawl.

For example, if I want to scroll up or down this IE page, the screen moves in waves! It uses 30-40% of my CPU as per the task manager.

There must be a quick and dirty fix for this... or not?

 

[IanGlinka]

I disconnected the 400GB hard drive, booted without it, and my computer worked fine.

Then I plugged the 400GB hard drive back in on a different channel (secondary IDE channel), and my computer is working fine.

I'm still getting the S.M.A.R.T. error when I boot my machine, but at least it's not running horribly slowly. I'm probably going to have to replace my hard drive at some point soon...

try setting the jumpers on the HD to cable select and using different channels.

Ian