Slow HDD - 3.4 MB/s ??

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Donovan Tipton

Weaksauce
Joined
May 2, 2008
Messages
102
My notebook has been super slow with startup & usually takes 4-5 minutes to be at usable desktop...Now I have thoroughly went through my startup/services etc. & find nothing that would be taking forever to load....

That being said, I downloaded HDTach just to see how the hdd is performing. It is running a paltry 3.4 MB/s . I know nothing about hdd's other than this thing is unbelievably slow...Anyone have any tips on how to check this drive further, tweak it or anything?? Any help would be appreciated...

Notebook specs:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00042933&lc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=228&dlc=en&product=366393

The hdd is a Toshiba MK8025GAS KA023A
 
I assume you're running XP? Your drive may have changed modes. Check this MS article about devices changing modes.

If it didn't change modes....back to the drawing board! :D
 
Yes, XP Pro to be exact.
I got in there & it was on PIO...I couldn't change the mode. PIO is all it will do...
 
How about running a few tests from HDTune?

Not being able to change the mode back is a bad sign. On a desktop, we could play with the cables and ports to better TS, but it's usually an indication of a dying drive.

Least, that's how it's always come down with me.
 
HD Tune: TOSHIBA MK8025GAS Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 2.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 3.3 MB/sec

This is all the free version of HDTune will allow me to do...??
As you can see the numbers are horrible.
S.M.A.R.T. shows the drive is healthy (sigh)
 
Try putting the drive in another system, I've seen a drive on a relative's computer that had really, really erratic performance (spikes and dips, averages around 3-4MB/s). I assumed the drive to be dying, but when I put it in another computer, it performed normally. So, there may be an off-chance that this performance may not be hardware, but a controller flaw/defect/failure or software-based OS problem, as well.
 
Try putting the drive in another system,
Click to expand...

Syntax beat me to the punch. :D

Also, I've never seen a virus/somekinda cootie do anything like this, but there's always that possibility. Are you fairly security conscious?

My first step, would be to get the drive hooked to another machine.
 
If updating the drivers doesn't allow you to change it to DMA mode, try removing the disk controllers in Device Manager, reboot and let Windows reinstall the drivers. It may be in DMA mode after that and if not you might be able to change it to DMA mode manually.

If none of that helps, it's likely a hardware problem involving the chipset, cable or the drive itself.

 
SmokeRngs said:
If updating the drivers doesn't allow you to change it to DMA mode, try removing the disk controllers in Device Manager, reboot and let Windows reinstall the drivers. It may be in DMA mode after that and if not you might be able to change it to DMA mode manually.

If none of that helps, it's likely a hardware problem involving the chipset, cable or the drive itself.

Click to expand...



This worked!! Thank you thank you thank you!!

I appreciate all input & this was actually the last thing I tried. Updating the drivers didn't work but once I removed them & rebooted, Windows fixed it...
I tested it on HDTune & it is working fine now. Wow! Thanks again!!
 
XP does tend to do this on some machines, yep. It'll suddenly just get slow, and for whatever reason, the drive(s) - including opticals - will suddenly revert to PIO Mode. The only consistent fix I've ever noted of any use was simply deleting the IDE/SATA controller totally and rebooting. During the reboot Windows seems to redetect everything and set it back to the performance defaults meaning DMA enabled and everything works again.

Just one of those quirky things...
 
Donovan Tipton said:
This worked!! Thank you thank you thank you!!

I appreciate all input & this was actually the last thing I tried. Updating the drivers didn't work but once I removed them & rebooted, Windows fixed it...
I tested it on HDTune & it is working fine now. Wow! Thanks again!!
Click to expand...

I've had to do this a number of times myself for my own systems and other people's systems. It's extremely annoying when it happens but luckily it doesn't happen too much.

Luckily, running in PIO mode is so slow that it's easy to tell that a drive is running in that mode. Otherwise, performance of a lot of other things would suffer as well since PIO mode chews up processor cycles like there's no tomorrow.

 
The first clue that I note with PIO Mode is the entire PC chokes nearly constantly and if you've got Task Manager up and running you'll note the CPU usage skyrockets too. Fairly easy to spot it once you've had experience with it...
 
Donovan Tipton said:
This worked!! Thank you thank you thank you!!

I appreciate all input & this was actually the last thing I tried. Updating the drivers didn't work but once I removed them & rebooted, Windows fixed it...
I tested it on HDTune & it is working fine now. Wow! Thanks again!!
Click to expand...

Good Deal!
 
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