Slow machine 1

[martinstan]

Hi
I've had an ongoing problem with my PC and although I'm suspecting a had drive problem I'm not sure. I hope someone can help. About 2 months ago I had a crash and was unable to reboot my computer. I eventually, after trying all kinds of fixes, bit the bullet and reinstalled my operating system. I noticed straight away that there was a slight 'lag' on most operations that I performed, but what highlighted the problem was that any music/video program really struggled-Windows media player,quicktime,Itunes etc... Everything kind of judders and misfires. I reinstalled the operating system once again and updated all my drivers- everything- Video, processor, soundcard etc. Anyhow, I thought I'd cured it but it has gradually returned. I've checked just about eveything I know how to. I've run spyware, adware,nortons. I've checked the processor fan. Checked startup items. I've studied the amount of processes running and checked event logs(I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for here but nothing is screaming errors at me). Anybody shed any light? I don't know why but I'm suspecting a fault on the hard drive. I've also recently defragged.
Below is a brief outline of what I'm running.

Thanks in advance.
Windows XP sp2
Pentium 4 processor 2.8ghtz
512 ram
80gb hard drive-2 partitions
Realtek ac97 audio
GEforce video

 

[ski]

Run the diagnostics for the HD at the manuf's site to check if it's failing.

Also:
-Did you reformat the HD before reinstalling the O/S?
-Are there any problems listed in Device Manager?
-What % of the CPU is being used when no active programs are running?
-Is the video card configured for full acceleration?
-Did you try different acceleration modes for the sound card?
-Did you disable all sound options(3D sound, stereo expansion, etc.) for the sound card?
-Which version of DirectX are you using?

 

[stduc]

Also what % of the CPU is involved in reading/writing to the disk? I ask because I have had a disk go bad where the electronics rather than the platters/heads were the culprit. I was able to rescue my data - but it took a very long time as 100% CPU was required all the time the disk was being accessed.

 

[martinstan]

Hi Fellas
Thanks for the replies. CPU usage looks to be OK on all fronts from what I can see. System Idle at 98% at rest. CPU usage goes up 4-5% when saving a file to disk. One thing I have noticed though is that my hard drive is listed as generic volume and using generic drivers?? could this being causing any problems?
Thanks
Martin

 

[stduc]

Its a possibility. But I'm running a RAID on this PC, so I can't check what an ordinarty IDE drive looks like in control panel! Perhaps someone who has this arrangment could comment.

The only things I can suggest are:-

Use Taskmanager to see whats going on when you play a video. Watch the %CPU and also look to see how much each task is using. It may give you a clue.

Have you got a virus checker set to scan files on open? If so, it may be causing the problem.

 

[wiredcoffee]

Have you checked for fragmentation? A fragmented hard drive is much much slower than a defragmented one. Yes, all hard drives fragment, but you can defragment them.