Disk Activity...

[techn9ne]

first of all hello i am new to the forum so i don't know how everything works yet but i will learn

now to the problem: when i open a program my hdd light stays solid for a while(depends on how much resource hungry the program is i think) and the system becomes slow for that time and highest active time under resource monitor goes way up sometimes even to 100% and stays there for a minute or more...what's more in games when i turn around or some quick motion happens the same thing happens even if im running a game for a while already...i've tried formating the drive,installing new windows disabling superfetch,indexing etc and nothing worked so this here is my only hope now.

specs:

graphics card: radeon 3870(this is a backup since my gts 250 died)

processor: intel i3 530 oc to 3.5GHz

mobo: gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H

hdd: WD7500AADS-00M2B0

psu: LC5550 v2.2

ram: kingston 9905458-012.a00lf 2x 2GB

 

if i forgot something or you need me to tell or do anything please do tell

 

 

[Skeletonfish]

welcome to the forums 

 

you could try throwing an ssd in there and either set up caching or just put your games and OS on there. the other thing i can think of is putting some more/faster RAM in there. sounds like its having troubles putting the data into the ram. how much ram are you using typically?

[Godlygamer23]

How much RAM is being consumed when this happens? Are you exceeding your 4GB limit?

[techn9ne]

im using 2-3GB ram when it happens,as for the ssd i don't have the money for anything at the moment since im looking for a job

[Godlygamer23]

I wonder if it's a hard drive problem.

[techn9ne]

that's what i would like to know i thought it might be ram but since it is not using that much i just don't know

[Godlygamer23]

Do you have any money at all for a new hard drive or any spares that you can use?

[techn9ne]

sadly no i tried asking a few friends if one could lend me one but nothing yet

[brob]

Actually sounds like it might be normal. It's a Green drive (5400 rpm) with only 32MB of cache on a SATA 3 Gb/s port.

[Skeletonfish]

has your computer always been doing this, or just recently?

[techn9ne]

sorry about not writing back sooner went out...i guess for a year and a half or so now it has been like this it cant be normal because when i first bought the pc it was working perfectly for a year but then this

[brob]

sorry about not writing back sooner went out...i guess for a year and a half or so now it has been like this it cant be normal because when i first bought the pc it was working perfectly for a year but then this

 

Not saying that it is, but it can be normal behavior. Multiple things contribute to this. As you fill up a disk, the stuff you use gets spread out and the heads have to travel much more to get to the various things you want to access. This can be made worse by file fragmentation, but even a non-fragmented drive will have some slowdown as it fills over time. As hdd age they may also develop weak blocks and the frequency of non-fatal retries my increase.

[techn9ne]

i see so the best thing would be to do a completly new windows install every so often until i can get a new drive i suppose

[brob]

i see so the best thing would be to do a completly new windows install every so often until i can get a new drive i suppose

 

It may speed things up a bit. But if part of the problem is a slow degradation of the hardware, performance will not return to what you remember.

[techn9ne]

well i tried some tests to see if there were some bad sectors or whatnot and it found nothing so i just don't know man...i realy don't know what else to do but since replace the drive and since this isn't an option right now...

[Skeletonfish]

try running a defrag that could help is what brob said is true

[Leonius]

Actually sounds like it might be normal. It's a Green drive (5400 rpm) with only 32MB of cache on a SATA 3 Gb/s port.

I have to say if you run everything on a Green dirve that symptomes are totally normal! it is a great drive for data storage but not for boot drive and programms it is just way too slow! get a cheap ssd or at least 7200 rpm drive they got really cheap now you can get a wd black for under 100 bucks!

[techn9ne]

i guess that's the only thing to do then. thank you everyone