Guest johnvmc@gmail.com Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the cross post. I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in performance to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk read. I've looked at a number of different potential problems from DMA/PIO to malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of info on my blog at http://foris.blogspot.com/ and would sincerely appreciate whatever ideas you may have on how to go about troubleshooting this problem.
Guest Shenan Stanley Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed johnvmc wrote: > I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and > was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the > cross post. > > I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over > the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in > performance to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk > read. I've looked at a number of different potential problems from > DMA/PIO to malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of > info on my blog at http://foris.blogspot.com/ and would sincerely > appreciate whatever ideas you may have on how to go about > troubleshooting this problem. Download the hard disk drive manufacturer's diagnostic utilities... Run them to ensure you are not having issues related to the drive dying... http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=SeaTools&vgnextoid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD (SeaTools for Windows has replaced SeaTools Online and PowerMax. SeaTools for DOS can test Seagate or Maxtor Parallel ATA (PATA and IDE) and Serial ATA (SATA) interface disc drives. Because the software boots to its own operating system you can test your drive regardless of the OS installed on it. You can even test a new or completely blank drive.) Since you are deep into troubleshooting this - you miught be best off making an exact image of the system NOW (Ghost, TrueImage, BootItNG, etc) to an external hard disk drive of sufficient size and trying a clean install - just to see if it truly is something to do with your configuration at all. If it works okay in the clean install - you know that it is software/drivers/conflicts... If it works the same - you are likely dealing with a hardware issue. -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Guest JS Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed Try HD Tune, provides drive info and has an option to test your drive. http://www.hdtune.com/ There is a utility that worth looking into if you want more info about S.M.A.R.T. The SMART tab displays current smart info on the drive you select and at your option provides an on-line analysis of the drive. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php PassMark's BurnInTest which has options to perform numerous test including the Disk: http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm Autoruns from the MS Windows SysInternals site: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx AutoRuns will show/list all apps/etc. that load/run when you first boot (Boot Execute tab), when you logon (Logon tab) and other programs that load (grouped by labeled tabs) for easy viewing. It also provides the ability to selectively allows you to stop (use with care) any program that you don't want to load. You can undo any changes you have made. Note: To get additional details on an item in the list you may need to highlight the item (right click) and use the 'Search Online' option to get the details, especially useful for the more obscure items in the list. Take a look at CCleaner as a tool to remove Internet history info, cookies, temp files, auto complete and other junk. In the 'Windows' tab listing check the item types you want deleted. This will free up space on the disk. Also available is customization, see Options/Custom to add any other/additional folders you want files deleted from. http://www.ccleaner.com/ JS <johnvmc@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1188607593.914498.185460@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... >I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and > was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the > cross post. > > I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over > the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in performance > to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk read. I've > looked at a number of different potential problems from DMA/PIO to > malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of info on my blog > at http://foris.blogspot.com/ and would sincerely appreciate whatever > ideas you may have on how to go about troubleshooting this problem. >
Guest Daave Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed johnvmc@gmail.com wrote: > I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and > was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the > cross post. > > I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over > the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in performance > to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk read. I've > looked at a number of different potential problems from DMA/PIO to > malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of info on my blog > at http://foris.blogspot.com/ and would sincerely appreciate whatever > ideas you may have on how to go about troubleshooting this problem. In case you didn't see my response in microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain, here it is again: CodeJawa@gmail.com wrote: > Daave & Gerry, > > Thanks a ton for the suggestions. I've spent a couple of days > attempting to research the suggestions that you made and came up with > a ton of new information but no solution. In order to be able to post > everything I moved it over to another site. > > If ANYONE can be of assistance in this matter I would greatly > apprciate it. Please check out my pathetic attempt at a blog at > http://foris.blogspot.com/ and see if you can lend a hand. Some other ideas: Have you checked the HDD for errors? Have you run the manufacturer's hard drive utility? It sounds like you have a hardware problem (I thought the drive was in PIO mode!). But in case it isn't... Have you used Process Explorer? Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx You said you scanned for viruses. What did you use? Remember that "the generic microsoft malware program" (are you referring to Windows Defender?) handles spyware but not viruses, worms, trojans, etc. If you haven't done so, do a thorough check for viruses.
Guest johnvmc@gmail.com Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed Thanks, Daave. I'm actually looking at it now. I've had some other things going on so I had to take a couple of days off and get back to work but I started debugging the problem again tonight. The DISCover utility is still a worry to me. I think it's an HP DM product. I also noted that my ZoneAlarm subscription had expired so I renewed it and updated all my virus / spyware definitions. I also downloaded a new vidoe driver which seems to have superficially sped things up at least. I'll let you know if I see anything else interesting in the process explorer (GREAT APP) and thanks again for all the good ideas. On Aug 31, 9:52 pm, "Daave" <dcwashNOS...@myrealboxXYZ.invalid> wrote: > john...@gmail.com wrote: > > I originally posted this issue on the xp perform_maintain group and > > was directed over here for some more support so please pardon the > > cross post. > > > I have a relatively new HP pavilion desktop with two 200gb HDs. Over > > the last few months I have noticed a dramatic decrease in performance > > to the point where now I am getting less than 1mbs disk read. I've > > looked at a number of different potential problems from DMA/PIO to > > malware issues, all to no avail. I've posted a ton of info on my blog > > athttp://foris.blogspot.com/and would sincerely appreciate whatever > > ideas you may have on how to go about troubleshooting this problem. > > In case you didn't see my response in > microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain, here it is again: > > CodeJ...@gmail.com wrote: > > Daave & Gerry, > > > Thanks a ton for the suggestions. I've spent a couple of days > > attempting to research the suggestions that you made and came up with > > a ton of new information but no solution. In order to be able to post > > everything I moved it over to another site. > > > If ANYONE can be of assistance in this matter I would greatly > > apprciate it. Please check out my pathetic attempt at a blog at > >http://foris.blogspot.com/and see if you can lend a hand. > > Some other ideas: > > Have you checked the HDD for errors? Have you run the manufacturer's > hard drive utility? It sounds like you have a hardware problem (I > thought the drive was in PIO mode!). But in case it isn't... > > Have you used Process Explorer? Available at:http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplor... > > You said you scanned for viruses. What did you use? Remember that "the > generic microsoft malware program" (are you referring to Windows > Defender?) handles spyware but not viruses, worms, trojans, etc. If you > haven't done so, do a thorough check for viruses.
Guest johnvmc@gmail.com Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed I decided it was silly to make you gusy do the leg work so here's the post from the blog minus the screenshots I included over there. Thanks for the feedback so far. Looks like there's already some new ideas to pursue. The following is the description of the wondrous journey of a new HPm7674n its 200gb Seagate drive that's dropping down to 0.4mbs. The problem wasn't terribly noticeable at first but has seemed to get worse and worse as the months have gone by. I originally posted the problem on the microsoft here. I got a couple of good suggestions and follow up information from the two people who replied and that set me off on a long series of tests in order to try and find out what was going on. Unfortunately the problem is persisting and I've decided to move a lot of the information associated with the problem to here so I can post more than I could on a message group. The system is running Zone Alarm Pro and the generic microsoft malware program from their support site so I feel relatively confidant in saying that this is not a virus or spyware issue. The problem manifests itself in INCREDIBLY long loading times for applications and in some case documents. Startup can take anywhere from 5 - 10 minutes as all of the services and applications load. From the initial post and information published on the XP group I thought we had a winner in the drive potentially having been switched from DMA to PIO due to disk errors. Unfortunately everything I checked indicates that the drives remain in UDMA-5 and the CPU looks untouched when the disk is reading. There have been a couple of "weird" problems with the HP since I picked it up several months ago. The ESCI was setup with resource conflicts between some drivers and devices and had to be reset manually. Presumably this was done during the setup of the machine at the factory and was never reset to the represent the new devices. While trying to find anything else that may have been causing this issue I did note that the bios was set up to recognize the dual 200gb drives as raid disks but the raid controller from Intel as part of the Intel Application Accelerator didn't have any raid partitions created. Some sources suggested that it might be the IAA itself that would cause these kinds of atrociously slow read times so I uninstalled it, still without making any kind of a difference. Now that IAA is gone though I can at least directly access the drive properties through the Device Manager to check on their setup. So far I've rescanned the computer for viruses and malware, checked the fragmentation level, reset the BIOS to non-raid and from AHCI to IDE, uninstalled IAA, and run HD Tune and HD Tach both of which confirm that drive performance is dropping to <1mbs> Just to answer another question: The free space on the drive is roughly 25% at 44.9gb of a 200gb drive. If anyone can provide some assistance or ideas on how to go about resolving this problem I would extraordinarily grateful. For a sense of what I'm seeing look below... This is the view of the CPU stats from task manager while one of those ridiculously slow reads is taking place. At the time this was taken the HD was below 1mbs. And in case someone notices anything that escaped my attention here is the shot of all running processes and information from task manager when this was going on. Full System Info: Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254) Language: English (Regional Setting: English) System Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061 System Model: RK505AA-ABA m7674n BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG Processor: Intel® Core2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz (2 CPUs) Memory: 2046MB RAM Error Logs: I have a TON of identical errors under IntelDH "Could not attach to EL Acpi driver." IntelQRTD ID 7 I'm also getting a ton of errors in the system event log for "The Remote Access Connection Manager service depends on the Telephony service which failed to start because of the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " Service Control Manager ID 7001 Again, ANY help would be appreciated here
Guest Daave Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed johnvmc@gmail.com wrote: > The DISCover utility is still a worry to me. I think it's an HP DM > product. Digital Interactive Systems Corporation is responsible for the three DISC entries from your Task Manager screen shot. See: DiscUpdateMgr.exe http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/DiscUpdateMgr.exe-15124.html Definitely not required to run on startup. You will find you have a lot of those. The best way to disable them is usually not through msconfig, but through the options of the particular application you're concerned with. But msconfig should work as a last resort. Just remember, sometimes the pesky little startups can return on their own if you disable using msconfig (the QuickTime tray icon is a classic example). These two sites should have just about every entry: Startup Programs Database http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/ TASK LIST PROGRAMS http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm Otherwise, Google will help.
Guest Daave Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed johnvmc@gmail.com wrote: > I also noted that my ZoneAlarm subscription had expired so I > renewed it and updated all my virus / spyware definitions. For whatever it's worth, newer versions of ZoneAlarm use lots of resources. May or may not be an issue in your case. Personally, I'd stay away from it and use alternatives with much smaller footprints (e.g., Comodo for firewall, AVG or Avast for antivirus). Also, you may interested in this thread: "VSMON consumes more and more memory" http://forums.zonealarm.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=9442
Guest Daave Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Please Help: Crippling Disk IO speed Daave wrote: > johnvmc@gmail.com wrote: >> I also noted that my ZoneAlarm subscription had expired so I >> renewed it and updated all my virus / spyware definitions. > > For whatever it's worth, newer versions of ZoneAlarm use lots of > resources. May or may not be an issue in your case. Personally, I'd > stay > away from it and use alternatives with much smaller footprints (e.g., > Comodo for firewall, AVG or Avast for antivirus). > > Also, you may interested in this thread: > > "VSMON consumes more and more memory" > http://forums.zonealarm.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=9442 And another: scanningprocess.exe http://www.castlecops.com/t178492-scanningprocess_exe.html
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