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Phage · 01-21-2005, 10:17 PM

OS: Windows XP Pro, patched up like Raggedy Ann
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 - 2.00GHz
Motherboard: not sure, can check if really important.
RAM: I believe PC2700, 2 sticks adding up to 1GB. <- Might be the problem, recently altered
HD: One 60GB with a 20GB partition for the OS, and the 40GB for everything else. One 250GB drive is in the box, but does not currently get any power (had trouble accessing it a few days ago, think it might have died).
Media: Floppy, DVD Drive, DVD RW drive.
Browser: Opera 7.54u1

After finding out that one of my sticks of RAM was bad and getting a replacement, I have been experiencing constant slowdowns which coincide with periods when my disk is being accessed. The symptoms are a regular and frequent (1-3 seconds apart) flash of disk activity accompanied by a marked jump in my mouse movement (as if frozen for an instant) and the operation of any application I was running, and even a stutter in audio. Sometimes it can be reduced by closing applications, but it seems that it will usually go away for a while after I close one or all of the explorer windows I have open.

I do not think that it is virus/spyware/malware etc. related because I run McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7 (updated) on it every night as well as recent treatment with Spybot - Search and Destroy and Lavasoft Ad-aware. I was thinking that it might be memory-related but it passed the quick tests I gave it after installation; I will run an extended test tonight.

Could this be a sign of bad/incorrect type of memory, HD death, or something completely different? Please speculate!

01-21-2005, 10:17 PM	#1 (permalink)
Phage Insane	HD Access = Performance Loss? OS: Windows XP Pro, patched up like Raggedy Ann Processor: Intel Pentium 4 - 2.00GHz Motherboard: not sure, can check if really important. RAM: I believe PC2700, 2 sticks adding up to 1GB. <- Might be the problem, recently altered HD: One 60GB with a 20GB partition for the OS, and the 40GB for everything else. One 250GB drive is in the box, but does not currently get any power (had trouble accessing it a few days ago, think it might have died). Media: Floppy, DVD Drive, DVD RW drive. Browser: Opera 7.54u1 After finding out that one of my sticks of RAM was bad and getting a replacement, I have been experiencing constant slowdowns which coincide with periods when my disk is being accessed. The symptoms are a regular and frequent (1-3 seconds apart) flash of disk activity accompanied by a marked jump in my mouse movement (as if frozen for an instant) and the operation of any application I was running, and even a stutter in audio. Sometimes it can be reduced by closing applications, but it seems that it will usually go away for a while after I close one or all of the explorer windows I have open. I do not think that it is virus/spyware/malware etc. related because I run McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7 (updated) on it every night as well as recent treatment with Spybot - Search and Destroy and Lavasoft Ad-aware. I was thinking that it might be memory-related but it passed the quick tests I gave it after installation; I will run an extended test tonight. Could this be a sign of bad/incorrect type of memory, HD death, or something completely different? Please speculate!