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Sound stutters, Computer running slow, processor often maxed out

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Shane:
Can you find out if the hard drives are in PIO or DMA mode?

PIO mode, which windows will put a drive into if it is having trouble means no DMA (Direct Memory Access) and so the cpu will spike and sometimes max out when ever it is reading or writing to the drive, the drive will also be a lot slower.

If that isnt it and the drives are in good shape (I would use a smart status checker to see how the drives are reporting themselves) then I would try updating the chipset drivers and see if it helps.

But is is possible that the drive is simply starting to go bad and isnt responding back to the storport driver and is causing the driver to hang while waiting for a response.

Shane

rpuzwebb:
Can you find out if the hard drives are in PIO or DMA mode?

Thank you Shane.  Have checked computer as requested. 

The system drive is too new it appears for PIO mode, the data drive is set to Ultra DMA Mode 2.  Good thinking though.

(http://techlogon.com/2011/03/28/how-to-fix-hard-drive-stuck-in-pio-mode/)

Have reimaged the System drive to an earlier date.  Most of the spikes have gone & sound is better but not perfect.  Processor still seems far too busy though.  I am checking now to see if there is an earlier image still I can roll back to.

Appreciate your help - it is all a useful learning curve.

Cheers Richard

Shane:
It is hard for me to tell you what the next move should be without seeing the system myself.

Just to cover all bases have you done some drive speed tests yet as well to see how the speeds look?

Shane

rpuzwebb:
Hi Shane
Have done a couple of speed tests.  The first C Hybrid Hdd.JPG (attached) which is a new hybrid SSHD, used for Windows & Apps, does not seem to compare that well with the HDD Drive D.JPG (also attached) which is used for data.
I will do another test on the conventional HDD it replaced (now just a spare) & see how that compares.

Newbie - Unsure what you meant in your reply.

Regards to both of you - Richard

Shane:
Those are really slow speeds for that drive then, it is suppose to be faster than a normal hard drive.

Let me know how the other speed tests go.

The reason why I had you do this part is because I have been on systems where the sounds files where being read off the drive, or something that was needed was being read off the drive instead of from memory, and the drive was slugging hard and would cause the sound to skip because it couldnt keep up.

So a faulty drive can of course cause this, but so can a drive that is having trouble or failing and that would in turn cause the driver to lag and spike. But if it was the driver doing it then the speed test on the 2nd drive should have had slower results as well.

Shane

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