hdd speed drops to 0.2MB/s after a few minutes??? what the?

[gaspah]

I'm fixing my mums computer at the moment... and i'm having some odd trouble with the HDD.... whilst i cannot get it to show any reportable errors... here's the odd problem I am having...

when i first boot the PC, the HDD read/write speed seems just fine... but after a few minutes the speed drops to 0.2MB/sec.... so for of an indication of how long before it goes from respectable 7200rpm drive speeds to pretty much a grinding halt is about 1/3 the way through a Windows XP installation (copying files over on the first blue text screen)... the first 33% copy at a respectable speed.. then nothing...

now i've run tests on all system components i could... CPU = fine, RAM = fine, ROM = fine... and when I run HDD tests aside from the speed drop-off after a few minutes... no data is lost...

any thoughts???

I thought at first it was a heat issue because it is one of those uber-small dell mATX computers....but i opened the the chassis and had a fan pointed at it.. didn't help..

thanks for any help guys

 

[yacoub35]

spindle motor dying in the HD?

 

[Nenu]

Have you tried it on a different SATA port?
Just for kicks try a different cable. Its not the most likely thing to be at fault but its a quick and easy thing to check.

 

[gaspah]

tried the cable yes... first thing i did (hardware wise)...

it's actually old-school IDE/P-ATA and I dont have one of those laying around at home.. but i found an old 20.4GB Quantum Fireball here at work... that i will test when i get home...

i think yacoub35 might be right.. sounds feasible...

thanks for the thoughts ppls

glad to see the forum is back online and my post was still there... that was like 12h downtime...

 

[unhappy_mage]

Is it falling back to PIO mode, perhaps? Does SMART say anything about a predicted failure?

 

[DonDon]

Have you run the manufacturer's diagnostics on the drive? If it's that slow, it should fail miserably.

Is it possible that there is some kind of malware running on the system. Some of them load fairly early in the boot process.

Does it do the same thing is Safe mode?

Don

 

[gaspah]

Is it falling back to PIO mode, perhaps? Does SMART say anything about a predicted failure?

yeah not sure how to test if is dropping from PIO (it says UDMA is enabled in bios, but i've been trying to reinstall windows (so there is no OS right now).... plus this is about 4 years old, and cannot find anything in this limited DELL's bios... (Dell - OptiPlex GX270 Series)... yeah all the options for HDD in bios are irrelevant... acoustics mode, ide drive UDMA, boot sequence etc... no SMART... dumb computer!!

Have you run the manufacturer's diagnostics on the drive? If it's that slow, it should fail miserably.

Is it possible that there is some kind of malware running on the system. Some of them load fairly early in the boot process.

Does it do the same thing is Safe mode?

Don

No have not run manufacturers diagnostics, but have run a few different diagnostic tools, i'm not losing any data, just bad speed... I will check seagate for tools..

no malware, all testing done in Preinstall Environment... unless the malware managed to wriggle its way onto the CD-ROM or embedded in the bios.. not a chance..

again... no windows... no safe mode..

>> well my solution.... i went and bought my mum a new 780G .... now (after some more testing) i'm probably just going to get a new IDE drive (even though the bios reports SATA available.. there are no ports i can see on the board) and recruit this PC into my ever expanding army of drones... another PC to allocate media encoding to when times get busy...


thanks for the help

 

[DonDon]

You can always pick up a Sata add in card. No sense in plunking down cash on an IDE drive these days. Or find a used on on ebay.

I have a pile of good 20-100 gig ide drives floating around the house. I have no real use for them. They are just too good to throw away.

Don

 

[gaspah]

well. i found the sata port.... is side mounted in the most unaccessible part of the whole thing... i think i'll just get IDE drive still... i dont think i can get a sata cable in there.. plus i dread the problems that came with early sata....eeep

 

[gaspah]

You can always pick up a Sata add in card. No sense in plunking down cash on an IDE drive these days. Or find a used on on ebay.

I have a pile of good 20-100 gig ide drives floating around the house. I have no real use for them. They are just too good to throw away.

Don

yeah do have a spare PCI 2-port sata-raid card laying about... but no SFF bracket for it... i could remove the bracket and leave it floating in the case i guess.

it's not a waste buying an IDE drive... if you have a use for one... I have a few (but they are all being used) It's not like i plan to get an expensive/large capacity drive... so $40 to fix a PC that still has a few years left as a drone... i think thats not too unreasonable... i mean it's still a 2.8GHz P4... so its not too bad... i mean i have a sempron 2400+ kicking along as a wireless media center in my spare bedroom, i can watch any SD DVD/divx/x264 movie i like on there accessed from my main PC... GO YOU BEAUTIFUL MX440!!!

 

[gaspah]

I have a pile of good 20-100 gig ide drives floating around the house. I have no real use for them. They are just too good to throw away.

you could start building remote control toy boats... then you have plenty of anchors