This jpg shows where sys is lacking

WinXP Home, SP2.

Trying this attaching a jpg for first time. Dont know if it will show or not.

Anyway, its from SANDRA Lite. and from what i see. the jpg does show where the sys is
falling short (storage performance). This, with 2 SATA HD's. Still dont have an idea how
one would fix this condition.

Believe me, i have tried everything i know, up to and including a clean (format C re-install
of windows, the F6 key didnt apply since it seems to be only for a RAID config.

savagcl

 

OK, the jpg took, a little hard to see clearly but its there.

Some additional info about the jpg (some guessing by me also).

The blue (background color) contains 5 points, from top to right, they are:
memory performance
arithmetric performance
storage performance
network performance
multimedia performance

The red color represents the (sub)system being measured. A well balanced system
(seems to me) should have a matching (red) shape as shown by the blue color.
The closer the red is to the the 5 points the better that subsystem is performing
(ex. the network is very close to its blue point).
Which tells me that the storage performance is falling way short. Still searching for
answers.

comments?
savagcl

 

True.
I was getting 120MB throughput from my HD's according to HdTach. This reading was pretty
constant for the first 8/9 months i had this system. Then (for no reason i can determine)
it started slowing down. Current reading from HdTach is around 54MB and i havent added
that much software to my sys. Just a slow degradation......

This system is in great shape except for this problem and there is no answer as to why this
is happening that i can find anywhere. A clean (format C did nothing to improve the
speed (and the F6, 3rd party drivers, does not apply).

thanks,
savagcl

 

Hi Clif, I know you and I have been "round the block" together on this problem, a real stumper isn't it?
Maybe I can throw a few more suggestions, trying to look at it logically.
The drive has been reformatted, so it does not seem to be due to the format, the OS, or the OS's drivers.
Another part of the drive setup is the Boot Sector or Master Boot Record, where information is kept about the drive (size, partitions, file format, etc). There may be something going wrong there.
Drivers can be added that are not part of the operating system eg., RAID configuration has drivers that are installed separately to the OS.
To completely rule out boot sector or driver problems, you may need to a low-level (zero) format on the drive. This is done with the drive manufacturer's utilities. It may be a little overkill, but should zap the problem.

Next level down would be firmware. You would need to check if firmware updates have been issued for the drive at the drive manufacturer's website.

After that is communication with the computer, which is run by the drive controllers of the motherboard. If you completely overhaul the drive (with a low-level format and/or firmware update) the only other place should be the drive controllers on the motherboard (you could test the motherboard by running it on another computer and doing the same Sandra diagnostics).

Edit: so actually, it may be best to run these tests backwards, checking the drive on another computer first. If the drive has Windows installed on it, do not run it as the boot drive, use the "native" Windows to check it.

Hope these help.
Matt

 

I think I remember now. The drive is a Seagate. I suggested you run the Seagate utilities. You had problems getting the Seagate utilities to run.

If you cannot get the Seagate utilities to run correctly I would very much suspect a problem with the motherboard.

If you follow what I said (above) and can test it on another computer, run the Seagate utilities there.

Matt

 

All good suggestions Matt.

I'll do those that i can. Unfortunately, no one else around here has a SATA capable MB
that i'm aware of but we'll see what can be done.

Meantime, my MD has a dual CPU, is there a CPU test that will test each one and give
a report on each that you know of, perhaps? I'll do a google and see what i can find.

Oh, Sandra also says one of the CPU fans is running slow or not running at all. Wrong! I
looked at all my fans (1 for CPU and 2 for PS), all are running fine. Just proves that even
testing programs can be mis-leading.

thanks, Matt,
clif

 

Found a little program called Performance Test. not half bad. Using the eval version now.
Will be interesting to compare with my new system..

Here is what all the test shows - notice the Disk Read, Write and Random timings.
Specially the random r/w.

savagcl