Computer running slow.....have tried all suggested solutions

[Computer_Commando]

so the hdd is definately the problem even though it passed the seagate tests?

This is Computer Hope not Computer Diagnostics.  The rest is up to you.

[execpro22]

He can buy a new HDD of 'the same type and about the same size and do a fresh install of the OS. If that does NOT solve the problem, he would  he move on to something else.
This is not my personal idea, that is what they teach field technicians..

I'm probably going to do that, But what is your personal idea?

This is Computer Hope not Computer Diagnostics.  The rest is up to you.

Ok, sorry I thought this was a forum where people can get help on fixing their computer, my mistake.

[execpro22]

would updating the drives firmware help?

[Geek-9pm]

would updating the drives firmware help?

Who knows? As said earlier, this forum is not for factory level diagnostics. Members here offer practical suggestions for helping individuals get their computers up and running. Beating a dead horse is not always a popular activity, but it seems this thread is the exception.

FYI The salvage value of  Hard drives used in Personal Computers in the past year or two is very low. A non-working drive is worth less that $7, and only if you have a lot of them. A brand new drive at the wholesale level is about $50  more or less for a 250 GB SATA drive.

[execpro22]

No firmware updates available for my hdd.

One last question......


Earlier in my post on page one a user had suggested that my controllers might be set to PIO mode instead of DMA. He told me to check the secondary controllers which I did and found they were all set to DMA.


Just now I decided to check my primary IDE channel in the device manager tab and saw that one of the primary channels was set to PIO mode. Could this be the reason for the slow down, and if so how can I change it back?


attached is a screenshot of it....

[recovering disk space - old attachment deleted by admin]

[execpro22]

Update.....

 

Last night I went into device manager and uninstalled the ide channel that was set to pio. I then restarted the computer which reinstalled the channel and when I checked it it was then reset to ultra dma 5.

 

The computer was running well and working fine...Then a couple of hours later I started to notice some slow down so I went and checked that same primary ide channel again and saw that it had lowered the DMA to dma 2.

 

Then, this morning I noticed that while watching a movie the system got real slow so I checked the channel again and found that it had reverted completely back to PIO mode.

 

 

Obviously this is where the slow down is coming from.

 

 

How do I keep my computer set at dma so It wont revert back to PIO?

[Salmon Trout]

How do I keep my computer set at dma so It wont revert back to PIO?

The DMA setting gets downgraded one step each time the system detects (and corrects) a certain number of errors. Eventually you end up with the PIO setting. You really need to find out what's going on with the disk.

[patio]

Couldn't agree more with Salmon here...
Dropping to PIO mode is a built in Windows setting for when a HDD has 4 or more consecutive read/write errors...

Neither a 5 page thread nor all the diagnostics out there are going to fix this failing HDD.

Back up your data immediately and cut your losses...

[aziz]

Hey i suggest you to change your windows to SP2 and SP3 is not working properly ....
i hope this can solve ur problem .....

[raj36562]

well..anyhow check ur operating system disk...?whether  it is going to be almost full or free space a lot?if its lot then there might be some cause occur like getting slow speed n all?this is oneway to justify ur fault..onemore thing is to check ur control panel n delete some unwanted programs?this wil also help u....disable ur unwanted startup n  unwanted applications....from msconfig.....this wil surely help u

[patio]

well..anyhow check ur operating system disk...?whether  it is going to be almost full or free space a lot?if its lot then there might be some cause occur like getting slow speed n all?this is oneway to justify ur fault..onemore thing is to check ur control panel n delete some unwanted programs?this wil also help u....disable ur unwanted startup n  unwanted applications....from msconfig.....this wil surely help u

This is good...

[execpro22]

Final update...


Ok after all downloading all these diagnostic programs and running all these different tests, doing a full reformat and install I have finally fixed the problem. The problem was my harddrive.

Instead of going out and buying a new one I decided to open up my tower and unplug and plug back in the ide cables connected to the motherboard and HDD. Apparently that has solved the problem because It has been a day and I have not recieved any crc errors in the windows event log and the primary ide channel is still set in ultra dma 5 mode.


So, the problem was that the ide cable was somehow missconnected inside the case.

That makes sense cuz I moved into a new apartment about the same time as the problem started and must have bumped the case which unseated the connection.



Thank you for all your help.