Super-slow hard drive

[Tek7]

This is why I was late to the Left 4 Dead 2 release party (aside from Valve unlocking the game an hour and 10 minutes late):



I also still have the same problem with YouTube videos stuttering that I had under Vista. Do I have a busted hard drive? Is it time to start screaming at Dell?

[bug]

cpu/ram/hdd? desktop/notebook? a/v or not? wired or wireless? HD or not?

[bug]

YOur disk activity isn't that bad..only 5 megs a sec is othing even for a 4500 rpm drive. If you are piggy backing on somebody else's wifi then you don't know how fast it uis nor do you know how much they are using it. I doubt it's a hardware issue(unless your hdd is a 4500 rpm drive which i highly doubt) i htink it's an inet issue..but without the aboe informaiton i'm guessing right now.

[Tek7]

Originally Posted by bug

cpu/ram/hdd?

• HDD: ST9160310AS
• CPU: Intel Core2 Duo T6400 @ 2.0GHz
• RAM: 2GB

Originally Posted by bug

desktop/notebook? a/v or not? wired or wireless? HD or not?

• Notebook
• Anti-virus: Microsoft Security Essentials
• Wireless
• Video card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 (Is that what you meant by HD?)

[bug]

no i meant the content. However with my quad core desktop system I'll get hulu.com stuttering although not that much with youtube(6 megabit connection here though with HD/HQ turned on). However your issue i bet is flash:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3678

Adobe is beta testing a new version that might help with flash rendering problems..but again if your inet connection isn't fast enough all of this is moot. In terms of hte wireless do you know how fast the inet connection behind the AP is or how many folks are on it? Also your hdd is 5400rpm and for online media that's fast enough as it's streamed. I don't think you have a hardware issue i bet it's a combo of flash issues(lesser extent) and inet connection congestion(much greater extent).

[Odale]

My bet goes to your wifi connection rather than an HD problem.

[Tek7]

Originally Posted by bug

no i meant the content. However with my quad core desktop system I'll get hulu.com stuttering although not that much with youtube(6 megabit connection here though with HD/HQ turned on). However your issue i bet is flash:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3678

I'll check it out. Thanks.

Originally Posted by bug

Adobe is beta testing a new version that might help with flash rendering problems..but again if your inet connection isn't fast enough all of this is moot.

I have a 8MB connection that's stable more often than not. I get a steady 1.0 or 1.1MB/s download on large files on my desktop computer. I don't download many large files at all on my notebook, but next time I do, I'll watch the download speed. If I remember correctly, I get the same download speed as on my desktop.

I also get consistent ping with little or no choke in game servers. I might be mistaken, but I think of online games as the most "sensitive" applications in the context of Internet and local network connections.

Originally Posted by bug

In terms of hte wireless do you know how fast the inet connection behind the AP is or how many folks are on it? Also your hdd is 5400rpm and for online media that's fast enough as it's streamed. I don't think you have a hardware issue i bet it's a combo of flash issues(lesser extent) and inet connection congestion(much greater extent).

Originally Posted by Odale

My bet goes to your wifi connection rather than an HD problem.

I doubt it's congestion or a connection issue as videos buffer and load quickly, but the actual playback stutters.

In other words, when I load up a YouTube video, the bar quickly turns light red from left to right as it buffers, but stutters throughout--even when the entire bar is light red.

On Vista, I only had issues with in-browser video content, but now I've had a few cases of video playback stutter on video files in Windows 7 in the last week or so. So the problem may be more complicated (or caused by a different root issue) than I thought.

EDIT: I also wonder if it may be a codec issue. Any time I format and install a new OS, I grab the latest version of CCCP (Combinbed Community Codec Pack) available and install it. (I watch a lot of fansubbed anime and the pack simplifies the process of snagging the codecs I need.) Maybe it's a codec issue?

The reason I suspected (and still suspect) my hard drive is because it seems like the hard drive is that large file operations (most recently, the Left 4 Dead 2 decryption) tend to bog down the system.

Is there any definitive way to measure hard drive performance and check it against comparable hardware? Maybe a specific diagnostic would provide some insight.

EDIT: And to clarify the Left 4 Dead 2 decryption issue: I was the last person in the group playing last night to get into the game. I started the decryption at the same time or even before others who were able to finish the decryption and launch the game several minutes before I did. It's possible that it's the difference between notebook (2.5") and desktop (3.5") hard drives, but I can't shake the suspicion that this machine's hardware--whether it be hard drive or otherwise--just isn't performing up to par.

[bug]

I never use third party codecs as you don't know if they are optimized or not. I would rip those out and see if that's the issue. yes your hdd is going to eprform slower but that is NOT goig to affect streaming media(which is what youtube is). you could do HD on that machine from the hdd and it would work fine..it's not a hardware issue. I would head for the CCP as even on my single core celeron under win7 with a 5400 rpm drive i don't ahve issues in youtube unless i turn on HD which then overstresses my cpu.

[vibrokatana]

Originally Posted by Tek7

EDIT: And to clarify the Left 4 Dead 2 decryption issue: I was the last person in the group playing last night to get into the game. I started the decryption at the same time or even before others who were able to finish the decryption and launch the game several minutes before I did. It's possible that it's the difference between notebook (2.5") and desktop (3.5") hard drives, but I can't shake the suspicion that this machine's hardware--whether it be hard drive or otherwise--just isn't performing up to par.

I use CCCP and haven't had any issues. Though I watch most video on my laptop (OSX) and not my desktop.

Unfortunately you didn't have the resource monitor's scale to 50 or even 100. It looks like the ranges spiked up past 10MB/sec. It is possible your getting 20-30MB/s peak, with the decryption overhead it probably is supposed to be for a laptop drive. To get a better measure of actual drive speed transfer a fairly large file (1-2GB) from another drive (or ethernet if you have gigabit).

SMART monitoring includes performance counters and logs of any unusual activity. Once it dips below a certain level the drive is marked as degraded (and provided the OS even monitors it, it will notify you).

[nattyg]

shut down windows defender / security essentials...should be fine. let it run a full scan overnight