Insane Slowness [Archive]

kur1j

10-17-2005, 12:49 AM

Ok maybe someone might be able to shed some light on this for me or maybe someone has had this problem and can tell me how to fix it. A friend of mine asked me to look at his laptop for him because it was not working right. Well I picked it up this afternoon and turned it on and the thing took almost 15 min to boot up into windows. Took another 15 min to finally finishing booting into windows. Anything that was done on the laptop took FOREVER. Basically anything to do with reading and writing from the hdd. The thing will actually start into windows but will take FOREVER to do anything.

It isn't a slow machine

512mb ram
2.4ghz p4
Gf 420 Go

I am running memtest on it tonight for about 6 hours if that doesnt show up anything then I am going to run the seagate HDD testing program. After that if it doesn't give any information then I have no idea what so any advice after that would be appreciated thanks :).

Oldie

10-17-2005, 12:56 AM

Well look in MSConfig and the process menu. What's loading at startup? Odds are it's bloated with loads of spyware and who knows what, and it's eating up a lot of memory. Step one is to go into msconfig, and disable everything in the startup menu. Then download and run adaware, and then see where it's at. If you think it's really hardware, try loading Knoppix or something else, and see if it's still insanely slow. If it is, then lots of different hardware failures could be occurring. My first suggestion is most likely though, at least without knowing more.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/685.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=685)

kur1j

10-17-2005, 07:49 AM

Well its a clean install of windows XP. So there is no spy ware at all on the machine. I will try installing linux on it if this hdd test doesn't find anything.

Ice Czar

10-17-2005, 08:00 AM

Start > Run > (type) devmgmt.msc > IDE ATA/ATAPI controller > DClick Primary IDE Channel > Advanced Settings Tab > Current Transfer Mode

should be Ultra DMA Mode

but sounds like it might be PIO mode which is glacially slow

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

after that Id try a hard drive diagnostic and ATACT
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=761272 (last post)

z-lite

10-17-2005, 09:44 AM

I'd say the HD is going bad, backup the data ASAP and replace.

kur1j

10-17-2005, 10:17 AM

thanks for the information ice, I am going to try that as soon as I get back to the house.

The problem wouldnt exist out of windows would it?

Reason I am asking as I started running the seagate disk tool and he said it was going to take 3 hours to complete. I am not sure if that is the normal or not. Lucky me I do not not need to back anything up as it is bacially a clean drive :).

z-lite

10-17-2005, 10:51 AM

kur1j

10-17-2005, 10:17 PM

I'd highly recommend using this Boot CD to perform a Fitness test on the HD: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
When you boot it, go to Hard Disk Tools, and then IBM Fitness Drive test and it'll see how your drive performs. Make sure your BIOS is set to enable DMA for your IDE channels.

Well so far its beein running this full test and it has been sitting at the "Analyzing Media" in the advanced test for right at 5 hours and its about 1/5 maybe 1/4 of the way done. It will not finish these long tests. It almost acts like its loading something from a floppy drive thats how slow it is. Heck a floppy drive looks pretty fast compared to this thing.

I am going to let this thing run over night and see if it actually finishes. I am betting that the HDD is going bad.

z-lite

10-17-2005, 10:19 PM

The long test doesn't take hours, it takes at the most, 30 minutes. Like I said, backup the data and replace it.

kur1j

10-17-2005, 10:55 PM

The long test doesn't take hours, it takes at the most, 30 minutes. Like I said, backup the data and replace it.

Well I am just scared I am over looking something. I wish I had another drive to just test it.

Ice Czar

10-17-2005, 11:05 PM

you verified it in DMA?

laptops loose drives its pretty common
but it possible that its the interface, the busmaster driver ect
if its experiencing CRC errors it will default to PIO
so if its in PIO that tells you something

HDD can be "marginally" functional but generally they suffer catastrophic failure
and the signs arent necessarilly "slowing down"
what does the drive sound like its doing?

kur1j

10-17-2005, 11:39 PM

Wow I totally forgot about my old laptop that is all torn apart that has a good 40gb laptop hdd. I just put it in and it seems to be working fine. Thanks everyone :). I got me some good diag. tools now though :). I will be calling him tomorrow and asking if he wants me to order another hdd and put in it :). Thanks again.

I guess any 2.5inch laptop hdd will work right? I was just going to go on newegg and price them out and tell him what kinda price range it will be in. So I am assuming any 2.5 drive will work :). Any suggestions?