Pc Slowdown When Accessing Drive(s)

[wamason]

Hey all,

 

I just got my new setup up and running yesterday, but I've encountered a minor annoyance. When I'mk copying to/from a drive (HD or CD), windows bogs down. My mouse pointer even acts sluggish. This never happened with my old setup. I could burn two CD's or a CD and DVD at one time, plus copy something from one of the HD's to another, and never have much of a slow down, but now, copying from just one drive to another, whether it's HD's or CD/DVD Burner slows the PC down.

 

Here is my old PC:

Athlon2600XP

Abit NF7 (not S)

Silicon Image RAID 0 Array using 2 Maxtor ATA133 80GB 8mb 7200 RPM drives

2 WD 80GB 8mb 7200 RPM ATA133 drives (stand-alone, not in the RAID array)

1GB GEIL Value DDR400 RAM (512x2)

NEC NH-3500A DVD Burner

LG 52x32x52 CD Burner

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

 

Here is the new:

Athlon 2600XP

DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra Revision B

Onboard SATA RAID 0 Array using 2 Seagate Barracuda 120GB 8mb 7200 RPM drives

2 WD 80GB 8mb 7200 RPM ATA133 drives

1GB GEIL Golden Dragon DDR400 RAM (521x2)

Same CD Burner

Same DVD Burner

Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

 

 

 

My thinking tells me that my new PC should be able to handle file transfer and CD/DVD burner even better than my old PC, or atleast the same, but things just aren't so....

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[cybergrunt69]

Are the cables for these drives the same ones from the old machine? you may be using a bad cable - and chance of trying a new one? Did you make any changes to the firmware on the optical drives? What drivers are you using for the disk drives? Some mobo makers make their own IDE drivers - since they're different than WIndows' version of them, it may make some type of difference.

 

I'm not really sure if this would have anything to do with it, but do you know what type of HD access is listed in the BIOS? LBA, auto, large, etc...

[wamason]

I'm using the two SATA cables that came with my DFI board. The IDE cables are the same ones I used from my old PC. I haven't made any firmware changes to the CD drives. As far as I know, DFI uses the generic nForce2 drivers. Bios is set to Auto (I don't think there is even a place to select HD mode).

 

Thanks!

[nakedeif]

There's two things I believe are contributing factors.

#1 DFI mobo

#2 Nvidia chipset

Try getting a BIOS update from DFI as Nvidia will have nothing to do with you. They only make the chipsets they say and everything else, it up to the maker of the board. (Previous experience helping friend).

[Capslock118]

yeah first thing i would suggest is to make sure ALL of your drivers are up to date.

 

I know i used to re-format my system from time to time and i would get super mad at my computer cause it wouldnt go to 8x with fast write for my video card.....

 

everytime i forgot to install my MB drivers for the graphics card

[wamason]

All drivers and Bios'es are 100% up to date. I'll have to look at the DFI Mobo CD again to see if I missed one of the 200 exe's you have to run to install drivers for everything

 

It's aggravating though because when I was using a pair of Maxtors in a RAID 0 array, file transfers and CD/DVD burning didn't seem to slow the system down so much. It's a huge difference now.

 

Thanks!

[hardnrg]

check your Raid, ATA, SATA and mobo drivers...

 

in Device Manager, check the Primary and Secondary IDE/ATA channels... make sure UDMA modes are active in the Advanced Settings

 

make sure everything in your bios is set to allow UDMA

[Folding_Buddha]

I like the mobo change, I'm thinking about doing that myself because I'm disappointed in abit let me know how the new one works out.

[wamason]

nuther question:

 

I've heard that overclocking can cause problems with SATA drives. I'm running my AthlonXP 2600 @ 200MHz FSB, and the multiplier hasn't been changed. Could this be causing some of my problem? I haven't experienced ANY data errors or any other problems, just the slow performance.

 

I love this DFI board. I couldn't get the FSB on the Abit NF7 past 182, but the LanParty handles 200 no prob. When I get all the kinks worked out, I'll try to go further. In the mean time I'm going to reset the FSB and voltages to stock, and make sure I didn't miss installing any of the drivers for the mobo.

 

BTW, the FrontX device is a good idea, but I'm not using because my case in black (even thought I have a door), and the Mobo only has ONE USB header and I'm runnning my cases front USB ports off it. I have a card reader I need to wire in, or find an adapter for, it goes in the floppy bay. Plus, the FrontX kinda looks dorky to me, just with the wasted space that a modular setup requires (the bezels around the ports/jacks)