Phage

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!

noodles

well
guess what
if a program running hits a page fault and needs to swap in memory from your HD, the program will lag some. your HD is extremely slow compared to registers/cache/main memory.

i'm not saying you don't have a malicious program or some other random problem. i'm just saying that HD access and lag can go hand in hand.

cyrnel

You may just be dealing with a master/slave misconfiguration. Some HD's require different settings if they're master single or master with slave and they will behave very poorly if the drive connections no longer match the jumpers. Having one drive connected but powered off can do this.

If you can't make heads or tails of what it wants then let us know the brands and models of drives, the arrangement of HD's and opticals on the IDE cables, and the current jumper positions.

i.e.:
IDE1, black (end) = WD model WD800BB 60GB jumpered as master w/slave present
IDE1, grey (middle) = WD model WD2500JB 250GB jumpered as slave

IDE2, black (end) = blah blah DVD as master
IDe2, grey (middle) = blah bah CDRW as slave

Phage

Thank you for your quick response. Here is my HD setup as well as I can describe it. I am not completely sure about the IDE cable setup, but what I will be calling IDE1 is attached to a blue slot on my motherboard, and the IDE2 is from an all black slot that has the DVD drives.

Disk 1 (OS drive)
IDE1, grey (middle) = IBM Model: IC35L060AVVA07-0 61.4 jumpered as Device 0 (Master) per instructions on the line that I think is for 16 heads, as opposed to the bottom line which is for 15 heads.

Disk 2 (MassStorage)
IDE1, black (end) = Maxtor DiamondMax 16 250GB ATA/133 HDD jumpered as, if I am reading this right, Spare. See bottom for explanation.

DVD drive
IDE2, grey (middle) = I cannot really get it out to look with ease, but it is jumpered as Slave.

DVD RW drive
IDE2, black (end) = Not pulling it out either unless absolutely necessary, but jumpered as Master.


Drive 2 jumpers:
The jumper pins are in a 2x5 grid with one missing, like so:
1,2,3,none,5
6,7,8,9,10
DS Master shows the jumper on pins 1 and 6
CS Enabled shows jumpers on 2 and 7
Cap Limit shows jumpers on 3 and 8
DS (slave) and Spare are on a merged arrow that points toward two jumper configurations shaded differently from all the others, on pins 2 and 3, and one that is on where pin 4 (absent) would be and pin 5. I am guessing that putting the jumper on pins 2 and 3 would set it as slave, and on 4 and 5 would store the pin as a spare? There is only one jumper on the drive currently.

cyrnel

First off, I'm not going to deal with any jumpers besides those for determining master/slave. They're either not to be messed with or for limiting capacity on older systems. Neither should be involved with your problem.

As a rule, the master drive should go on the end (black) of a modern cable (blue/grey/black). Technically this should only matter if you're using Cable Select settings to determine master/slave, but specifications are not implementations. Some drives do not like having their CSEL pin floating when they're the master or grounded when they're the slave. It sometimes only causes a problem with certain disk controllers and not others. It's a black box problem unless you want to debug your particular devices. I can't guarantee it's contributing to your case but it been the problem several times for me. I'd switch it.

For Disk 1, the IBM, it's like Western Digital drives in that it needs different jumpers depending on whether there's a slave drive on the cable. Master or master with slave. Having the jumpers wrong can cause exactly the problems you're reporting. Annoying if you often add/remove slave drives. Here's their pic for normal full capacity 16head use:
<img src="http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/d120gxp/16lhjum.gif">
Looks like you want the last config. I'm looking at the information <a href="http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/d120gxp/d120gxpjum.htm">here.</a>

For Disk 2, the Maxtor 250, (model 4A250J0?): A "spare" position generally means a place to store an unused or spare jumper. It has the same effect as if you stored the spare in a sock drawer. Often the "sideways" positions are similar in that the rows are not connected so jumpering them is just a way to store the jumper. Depends on the drive.

According to Maxtor's sometimes flawed docs the positions are:
<img src="http://maxtor.custhelp.com/rnt/rnw/img/enduser/m_a1.gif">

It sounds like you want this to be your slave drive, so leave the jumper off or put it on the spare (4&9) position. The drive should be connected to the center (grey) cable position.

Since I don't know the age of your system I'd recommend doing things in this order to ensure things are detected as you expect:

1) Disconnect both drives. Leave the IBM drive jumpered as master and connect to the end (black) cable position. Power up the box and use the BIOS auto-detect to make sure the drive & capacity are correctly recognized. Save settings, boot. Worked? Shut down.

2) Powered off again, connect the Maxtor drive jumpered as slave to the center (grey) cable position. Power up and use the BIOS auto-detect again. If it's recognized then save & boot.

**Of course if the pics I posted or my info don't seem to match your drives then stop & double-check model numbers vs. specs.**

Phage

Thanks cyrnel, that seems to have fixed the performance issues completely! Any chance you could work your magic in my other thread "HD Recovery Tips"?

cyrnel

Uh oh.

I'll go look. It's a big house-cleaning day so I could use the break.