Poor Hard Drive Performance yet all diag tests passed

For the last day or 2, the performance of my PC has degraded significantly. The symptoms are the same as if an application was using 100% CPU or an extremely high memory usage but everything is normal. I have run a full virus and spyware scan, both negative. No rouge apps are running.

I have run 2 different BIOS diagnostic tests on the hard drive and all tests passed. I called Dell "tech support" and after 20 minutes of "try this and try that" he determined that it was an OS problem, format and reinstall the OS.

I have made no changes to my system is at least a month. Unfortunately, my system restore was turned off so I can't use that.

I'm not sure if this is a hardware issue or an OS issue so I hope this is the correct forum.

Here are my system specs:

Dell Dimension 3000, XP Home, SP2 and all current updates, 2.8 Ghz processor, 512 MB RAM. The machine is less than 2 months old.

TIA for any help.

Rob

 

Since you're 'burning in' your new hardware under warranty, this is a good place to start work on the problem. It seems to turn out to be software much of the time, however.

Would first ask you about your online connection and security. You mentioned antivirus and antispyware; do you also have a firewall? Are you on dial-up or broadband? If broadband, do you have a hardware firewall?

Also wonder if you've removed excessive background programs. Check first in Task Manager to see if anything is taking up an inordinate amount of CPU time when things are slow. And use msconfig at the run prompt to eliminate unnecessary startup programs.

Dell's suggestion isn't a bad one, but of course it's a lot of work. On the other hand it might save lots of work doing tests of memory, disk drives, etc. If you fdisk first, deleting and remaking the partition(s), it's a sure way to clean your disk and find out if that can be eliminated as a cause of the slowdown. The best programs can miss some of the pests that infect our computers.

 

Sparrow,

Thanks for your reply. I have DSL, running Kerio firewall as well as a Linksys Wireless router. I have a small home network (4 desktops and 1 laptop). All other machines on my network are fine.

I have killed all background programs, including anti virus and firewall (after disabling the network connection) and the performance was the same.

I am hoping not to have to reformat because I have so much data, software, and setting that I would have to restore, it's worth spending some time to try to solve it without formatting.

I reinstalled SP2, and ran SFC and it replaced a couple of files but produced no change. I am going to try to reinstall the OS without formatting and see what happens.

I was hoping someone might have seen this behavior before and knew of a solution.

 

Hi Compdude,

I am going to try to reinstall the OS without formatting and see what happens
Hold off on that.

Go into the system properties > performance > settings. A number of things to look at:

Visual effects - how is that set? Try the setting for best perfornance.

In the Data Execution tab - tick the first option if it's not already: Turn on Dep for essential programs and services only.

In virtual settings, what is the page file setting? System managed or custom? And what is the size?

If you don't have it, download/install Everest home edition http://www.lavalys.hu/products.php?lang=en It might point to a problem - temperatures. It'll give you full specs on the hardware.

Regards - Charles

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charlesvar

Visual effects set for best performance
Dep is set for essential programs and services only
Page file is custom set at 768 Mb
Installed Everest home edition and the temperature was 88F. Not sure if that's good or bad but it seems reasonable. Everything else looked normal.

PeteC

As soon as I started having problems, I did what you suggested. Cleared all temp files, deleted pagefile and defragged. No improvement.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll keep trying to solve this for another day or two before I bite the bullet and reinstall.

 

Might also verify in the BIOS that the CPU is running at its advertised speed.

And, an online antivirus scan should be considered since malware can turn off the ability of resident software to find it.

 

Hi compdude,

A shot in the dark - is there a process called My way search assistant running? It's a Dell piece of **** ware and lots of complaints. One symptom, degraded performance.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13900780~days=9999

BTW, have you disabled apps one by one and run minus that app? How does safe mode work? Have you tried any of the various startup modes in msconfig?

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks for all the replies.

PeteC, the temp was for the CPU, I didn't see one for the hard drive. I will look tonight when I get home. Yes, DMA is enabled for the drive.

Sparrow, I did check the hard drive is running at it's normal speed. As for the on-line scans, I did them as soon as I finished with my own diagnostics. I ran both Housecall and Rav.

charlesvar, I uninstalled My way search assistant as well as several other Dell programs as soon as I setup the machine. They cause more problems than they are worth. Yes, I did disable apps one by one to see if it changed performance. No change. I have not tried safe mode or other startup modes. I will give that a shot.

Thanks to all!

 

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions/fixes. I was unable to resolve the problem so I bit the bullet and reinstalled XP. Everything works fine now.

Thanks

 

Hi Compdude,

Thanks for the post back. This highlights one of the reasons that anyone that gets a system from any OEM should make sure and insist that a XP cd comes with the system along with the cd's for the apps that came with the system - not just a "restore" back to factory settings.

I notice lately that Dell offers a choice of the OS cd or a "recovery" cd that needs a partition on the HD ala HP/Compaq. What happens if the drive gets hosed they don't explain

Regards - Charles