HDD continuously working on Centrino chip making general processes v.slow

CrazyChemist_2

Hi,

I've had my Dell Inspiron 6000 for a few months now and it has a 1.6Ghz Pentium M, 512MB RAM, 2MB L2 Cache and if it matters a 40GB HDD.

It was very very quick when I used it following delivery in October, but lately I've noticed a slowing down in performance - the HDD light stays on for around 4-5 mins after startup and I'm not entirely sure what the HDD is up to but also when I use dial-up to access internet, it seems to effectively panic and the HDD goes nuts again, and I can't normally do more than one thing for another minute or two.

I wouldn't have minded if this had happened from the start but it's only happening now which is what irritates me - it's supposed to be quite a good performance machine but that's not what's happening at the moment.

I've got Symantec Coporate Antivirus, Windows Defender (BETA 2) and of course Window's own firewall and I've just completed another full virus check and Defender has cleared a scan saying "your computer is running normally".

Hope someone knows what on earth is going on here because I don't!! :rotfl:

Cheers. :T

CC :beer:

Mr_Squiddy

CrazyChemist wrote:

Hi,

I've had my Dell Inspiron 6000 for a few months now and it has a 1.6Ghz Pentium M, 512MB RAM, 2MB L2 Cache and if it matters a 40GB HDD.

It was very very quick when I used it following delivery in October, but lately I've noticed a slowing down in performance <snip>

I had a similar issue with my Dell Inspiron 1300 running XP - the latter is important as it is an issue caused by a 'feature' of XP. Your hard drive can be accessed using DMA (don't worry about what it means) which comes in several 'modes'. The higher the mode, the faster the access. If XP detects drive errors then it will reduce mode and hence the speed until it doesn't get any errors. This is what happened with my Dell. I do not know what the errors were and the problem has never come back.

Go to Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager. Open IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers -> Primary IDE channel. Under Advanced Settings check the Transfer Mode for both devices - it should read DMA if available. If it does not then select that option. You may need to reboot.

If 'DMA If Available' is selected then look at the Current Transfer Mode - it should read Ultra DMA Mode 6 (possibly 5 depending on your PC) If it is lower than that or mentions 'PIO' then that is probably your problem. Simply, your hard disk is working way too slowly.

To fix the problem, select the Driver tab and 'Uninstall Driver'. You will then be asked to reboot. XP will then reinstall the driver and reinstate the highest DMA mode.

If you do have a genuine HD problem then the DMA mode will slip back again. In which case you probably have a hardware problem which should be covered by the warranty.

HTH,
P.

Bob63

The other problem could be lack of memory.

Do CTRL-ALT-DEL after startup to bring up task manger. Do this once the system has settled down following bootup but before you start any of your usual programs such as browser, email, office etc. Look at the commit charge and see how much it says. If it is anything close to or over 512MB then you have too much running in the background. You have two options.

1) Click on the "Processes" tab then click twice on the top of the "Mem Usage" column to sort all the processes by memory usage. See if anything is using a huge amount of memory. Some of the process names should be obvious but others you may have to track down. To find out what they are simply google them e.g. ccapp.exe which google reveals to be the Symantec Common Client, part of the antivirus/firewall package. If you find any processes that are running that shouldn't be, or which you could do without then terminate them and remove them from the startup list. The ultimate solution could be that you have just too many things starting up in your computer and running in background or in the system tray in the bottom right of the screen. Some good housekeeping can reclaim a huge amount of memory.

2) Buy more memory. To be honest 1GB is what you need to make XP fly on a laptop and memory is so cheap. Goto http://www.crucial.com/uk and checkout their Memory Advisor or even better their Memory Scanner. The latter will (hopefully) identify your laptop and tell you exactly what memory you currently have and what your upgrade options are.

Good luck.

Mike

JWVOODOO

i've found getting a bottle of air and blasting the air vents out now and then, improves the performance abit. build up of dust inside a laptop can really slow it down.

T4i

Sounds like you have things running that are just hoggin up your computer.

I'd go into msconfig and look what you have on startup. Untick anything you dont require to run when you switch the p.c on.

run ccleaner
run your spyware cleaner
goto housecall and do a virus scan online
check disk for errors
defrag
reboot
boot into safe mode
look in device mgr and see if you have any (!) next to any devices

reboot, see how things are.