System lag while copying many files between drives?

Deam

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2004
Messages
248
System:
p4 530J @4.0ghz (267 FSB), 1gb Dual Channel Ram OCZ value, Asus P5AD2-E deluxe, several IDE drives, and one 250GB SATA drive.

My problem is that when I do large number of file copies, the system starts to lag. That is, the mouse becomes non-responsive, there is a delay in opening winamp, etc. Is this normal, and if not, how can I go about troubleshooting.
 
Hard drives are the slowest thing on a computer. So yes, it will slow down everything else!
 
Make sure you're not set in PIO mode. Run HDTach to determine your drive speed. If it averages very low (less then 15 or so, i dont actually remember the spec), then you need to set it to Ultra DMA mode. It's normal to have programs open slower, but it's not normal to have your mouse become unresponsive.
 
DMA is enabled, and for some reason, it isn't really doing it consistently anymore. The drives are on SCSI controllers in XP, which are really just 3rd party IDE controllers, and SATA.

It seems to not be a problem anymore. Very strange.
 
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