Slow PC.Is Hard disk the culprit? 2

[alberteinstein]

hi

My PC config : PIII 650 Mhz 128 MB RAM Zebronics Mobo (mobo is new - 3 months old ] Win XP Pro
PC age : 4-5 years old.

For a long time now I have noticed that PC is slow [ I have been ignoring it],

My 20 GB harddisk [ST320413a] has some creeky noise..
Also the CPU fan makes a lot of noise..

No virus/spyware has been found with norton/adaware etc.
There is no bad sector in HD.

I suspect that the slowness of my PC is due to hard disk & I am ready to get a new disk.
But I want to make sure that the cause is harddisk before I make the new HD purchase.

Is there anyway I can find that HD is faulty?any s/w?

 

[vacunita]

I strongly suggest you go to the manufacturers webiste in your case Seagate judging by the model number you gave us. And download their diagnostics programs and run them on your drive.

If they come back with no faults then the slowness is probably not due to a failing drive but more likely to whatever is running in the background. You should check that too. From the Taskmanager.

Alos the Msconfig utility ill help you diable things you dont want runniong in the background that can slow down your PC.


----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Lemon13]

sea-tools from seagate

http://download.seagate.com/seatools/registration.nsf/eula/desktop

happy new year

 

[MasterRacker]

Go here, run the benchmark tests and compare to comparable systems. You should be able to pinpoint your bottleneck this way.

[sub]Jeff
[purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day

"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/sub]

 

[2ffat]

When we the last time you defragged? I would recommend DIRMS over the built-in defragger. See

http://www.dirms.com

for more info.

James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[rvnguy]

alberteinstein,

XP running on 128GB mem has to use the HD as a swap file to a large extent. This will manifest itself as slow response to most any request that has to firsr move data to the HD then load the new request,

If you do what is recommended in the previous posts, diag the drive, if no problems then defrag it.. Aslo check for free space, if close to full the OS has little space to use for a swap area.

Evaluate where you are in sll of the above. Addditional memory up to what this system will support should improve response speed. If your drive is close to full a larger drive will also help.


How to configure paging files for optimization and recovery in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314482

How to set performance options in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417/

Hope this helps

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[linney]

PIII 650 Mhz 128 MB RAM"

This machine is never going to be the fastest in the world when it comes to running XP.

Here are some things to look at which will help a bit until that happy day when you get a brand new machine.

FAQ779-4784 may help.

windows XP running very slow
thread779-796508

 

[cdogg]

128MB in memory is definitely suspect as the others have mentioned. I doubt that your performance trouble has much to do with the hard drive, which is the slowest component in anyone's system.

You're probably heavily infested with spyware/adware, need to defrag, and possibly need to reduce the amount of programs that are loading at startup.

If this was an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, that could also be a source for trouble. Without a doubt, a clean install and increasing your RAM will do wonders if that's an option for you. Otherwise, use the links in linney's post and this one (faq779-6085) for some help cleaning up what you have now...

~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

 

[cweathe]

I always recommend when dealing with XP, is to always add more RAM. I had a P4, 128 Mb RAM, running Millenium Edition. When I upgraded to XP, I noticed that it ran slower even though XP only calls for 128 Mbs of RAM. I dropped in a 256 stick, with the existing 128, and noticed a smoother, faster performance.

Also, I didnt have a lot of programs running in the background, which a lot of times will cause slower performance. Get some RAM, and get a windows cleaner to clean your cookies out, and all temp internet files, and like the above post run a defrag. You should see a difference.

 

[alberteinstein]

Thanks guys.Will work on it & get back to you.
Happy New Year.