Slow hard drive access times, gets slower with time!

[ssabripo]

Did you do a fresh install with your new mobo. And have you connected up your data drive with you old files etc on it?

of course....fresh spanking new.

yes, I did connect my old drive as of last nite. Do you think it has to do with that? how can I scan the drive for trojans/etc?

 

[mansrm81]

Do you have an antivirus software installed if not download avast which is free.

avast! 4 Home Edition - FREE antivirus software - Download

 

[ssabripo]

guys...I want to thank all of you for helping me for the past several days, specially Norm and Michael. At this point, after 4 motherboards, new hard drives, new Ram, 3 vista discs, and numerous sleepless nights troubleshooting this, I have to raise the white flag at this point.

I'm going back to good ol' XP pro SP3, and call it a day. I cannot afford to keep buying and sending stuff back, and I can't keep going without a PC for all this time.

In due time, if there is a Vista SP2 or SP3 coming out, or if Windows7 comes out in a year or two, I'll just start fresh.

Once again, thanks to all....I must confess, I feel pretty beaten! I've never had a PC kick my royal butt like this, but there is always a first I suppose.

cheers!

 

[NormCameron]

Sorry we couldn't help you ssabipro. Good luck with whatever you choose to do. Keep me posted on the outcome PLEASE. Did it slow down before you connected your old drive? Yes I do think it could involve your old drive. It certainly doesn't seem to be anything else. You've basically run Vista on 3 seperate computers, with the same result. It could be your copy Vista, but unlikely. About all thats left is that drive and the files???

 

[ssabripo]

Sorry we couldn't help you ssabipro. Good luck with whatever you choose to do. Keep me posted on the outcome PLEASE. Did it slow down before you connected your old drive? Yes I do think it could involve your old drive. It certainly doesn't seem to be anything else. You've basically run Vista on 3 seperate computers, with the same result. It could be your copy Vista, but unlikely. About all thats left is that drive and the files???

yeah norm...it most certainly could be, but I disconnected the drive all together, and it was still slow. Looks like a virus that once it stains the account, there is not cure...kinda like AIDS

I ran avast on it, and it didn't find any virus or trojans.

oh well...I will keep you posted. For now, I'm just going to use SP3 XP pro.

 

[UNTAMED]

Sorry we couldn't help you ssabipro. Good luck with whatever you choose to do. Keep me posted on the outcome PLEASE. Did it slow down before you connected your old drive? Yes I do think it could involve your old drive. It certainly doesn't seem to be anything else. You've basically run Vista on 3 seperate computers, with the same result. It could be your copy Vista, but unlikely. About all thats left is that drive and the files???

yeah norm...it most certainly could be, but I disconnected the drive all together, and it was still slow. Looks like a virus that once it stains the account, there is not cure...kinda like AIDS

I ran avast on it, and it didn't find any virus or trojans.

oh well...I will keep you posted. For now, I'm just going to use SP3 XP pro.

you said in one post you had a wireless mouse , did you at any point try a corded one as a person on the asus mb site had many problems only to find it was the USB transmitter after many hard ware changes like your self .

-I posted this a few hours ago but I can't find it , so if it's a double post disregard

 

[dmex]

Southbridge controls SATA / PATA interactions with the CPU. Perhaps your recent "tinkering" has caused the issue to re-appear?

I'm 99% sure that the MCH voltage had nothing to do with this. This is my fourth board, my first with Gigabyte (which has this control, unlike Asus), and they all exhibited this behavior, even prior to any tinkering.

I'm really getting to the point of thinking it is an issue with my copies of vista. All 3 copies were from the MSDN download sections (I have a subscription), so at this point I can only assume it is that.

the hardware, including drives, work fine with XP.....this only shows up in vista, so I can only think it is a Vista issue. I'm gonna see if I can buy a copy of Vista Home Premium retail and see what happens.

Upping the VRAM voltage even .5v can permanently and seriously damage RAM/HDD and FileSystem Access...If you just recently installed Vista again you should let the Indexer service finish its inital index before blaming it for the problems...

I can say after all these suggestions and all that new MB/HDDs/Mem equipment is that somehow, someway or some program/driver your using or something your doing is causing this because the failure rate of your machines is currently 100% and out of the hundreds of Vista machines I can only count 4 that needed some if any tweaking from defaults

 

[ssabripo]

Southbridge controls SATA / PATA interactions with the CPU. Perhaps your recent "tinkering" has caused the issue to re-appear?

Upping the VRAM voltage even .5v can permanently and seriously damage RAM/HDD and FileSystem Access...If you just recently installed Vista again you should let the Indexer service finish its inital index before blaming it for the problems...

I can say after all these suggestions and all that new MB/HDDs/Mem equipment is that somehow, someway or some program/driver your using or something your doing is causing this because the failure rate of your machines is currently 100% and out of the hundreds of Vista machines I can only count 4 that needed some if any tweaking from defaults

I'm 99% sure that the MCH voltage had nothing to do with this. This is my fourth board, my first with Gigabyte (which has this control, unlike Asus), and they all exhibited this behavior, even prior to any tinkering.

I'm really getting to the point of thinking it is an issue with my copies of vista. All 3 copies were from the MSDN download sections (I have a subscription), so at this point I can only assume it is that.

the hardware, including drives, work fine with XP.....this only shows up in vista, so I can only think it is a Vista issue. I'm gonna see if I can buy a copy of Vista Home Premium retail and see what happens.

that could very well be, but the issue is I can't figure out what it is.

these are brand spanking fresh installs.
these were done with no additional software installed save firefox...no antivirus, nothing.
there was no overclocking done, no manipulation done, etc, prior to the problem appearing....in the case of the 3 asus boards, that was all default modes pretty much, and yet still the same issue.

I am aware of of many people successfully installing vista in similar hardware, but I just can't get were the problem is, and I've tried everything suggested here and more.

 

[NormCameron]

ssabripo, I can't think of how else to help, I did notice you said "after I disconnected the drive it was still slow." When you re=installed Vista with the new MOBO you said it was running OK. When DID you connect the backup harddrive. When you did the install or afterward. Did it slow down after the drive was connected?

 

[ssabripo]

hi Guys...just a quick update: I've been running XP for a couple of days now, and it is running BEAUTIFULLY! drive access is fast (knock on wood), and all works as should.

this morning I overclocked it from 3.0ghz to 4.1ghz, and it is running like a champ.

Looking back at this, I cannot fathom anything else other than some issue with Vista and certain combinations of hardware. I've had a couple of PMs at Xtremesystems from people with similar issues asking if I found a solution, and unfortunately I told them no.

I'm hoping that Vista SP2 or windows7 fixes these issues in time.

 

[NormCameron]

Thanks for the Feedback ssabripo. You learn something all the time. I wouldn't have believed this could be such an issue. The experience was worth it for me. I learnt a lot from that thread. Sorry I couln't help you, but thanks for helping me.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

I hope it does not affect your storage timing and corrupt your data.

 

[ssabripo]

I hope it does not affect your storage timing and corrupt your data.

yeah...I'm testing a lot right now before I say it is "stable".

doing lots of CPU/RAM stress testing (Orthos, prime95), and also lots of file copying from one drive to another (there are 3 drives right now).

so far it seems stable.

 

[ssabripo]

Thanks for the Feedback ssabripo. You learn something all the time. I wouldn't have believed this could be such an issue. The experience was worth it for me. I learnt a lot from that thread. Sorry I couln't help you, but thanks for helping me.

thanks for all your pointers and suggestions too Norm...is good to see such helping hands around here!

 

[Vortexzpd]

I too had the exact same problem. Clicking on c: drive would take forever just like your video. The green bar would go so slow then finally i could access the drive. I too have gone crazy trying to resolve this issue and it seems now that i have.
The fix was simple. I just manually set my ram to ddr800 then voltage and timings per the JEDEC#2 setting not EPP settings. Voltage1.8(5-5-5-18-22). Please note that i do have EPP ram and mobo that supposed to support it. But if i set the bios up to use EPP memory settings then i have the drive access problem.
I am running 4 sticks of ram all cm2x1024-6400c4.
I used to run just to sticks and i didnt have the problem at that time and used the EPP settings. It seems there is an issue running 4 sticks at epp settings thats causing it. But it also could be that although i have four sticks of the same ram it really isnt the same. I purchased the second pair like a year latter. While in CPU-Z looking at the SPD i noticed that the second pair does have a different EPP setting in the tRC setting. The old set has a setting of tRC 102 while the newer set has tRC 22. Mobo is asus m2n32 sli deluxe. whatever the case its fixed.