hard drive(s) making computer choppy?

[MonsterMac]

Hey guys,

I have 4 hard drives, 2x300gb maxtor diamondmax10's (7200RPM, 16mb cache) (one of thse is my OS drive) and 2x320gb WD3200JD (7200RPM, 8mb cache). Each of these drives, is pretty full, with probably on average 15gb or less space available on each drive. I've noticed in some of my games (CSS, Far Cry, that sometimes it will randomly jitter, or freeze for a couple secs, and then revert back to normal). I also notice that sometimes in windows, it will do this as well. Do you think it's because the amount of hard drives/data I have in the system, or that it has to do with my OS drive being filled with 'data' too (by data I mean pictures, mp3, videos, software, etc.). What do you think? Any and all ideas are welcome!

 

[unhappy_mage]

I think it's time for a spyware check and maybe a defrag rather than a drive replacement. And if that doesn't work, a Windows reinstall would be my next step.

 

[MonsterMac]

it's definitely not spyware/viruses, I run adaware, spybot search and destroy, and spyware blaster, coupled with NOD32. I think defragging helps a little bit, but I was just curiuous of drive performance issues if they were full.

 

[PWMK2]

Care to give us info on your pagefile?

1. Right click on My Computer --> Properties
2. Advanced tab
3. Performance Settings
4. Advanced
5. Virtual Memory

Most likely, you have a small pagefile... the amount of RAM in your system would be helpful, as well.