Hello,
Sometimes my computer runs very slowly and I starded to accuse my hard disk for this situation.
O.K., here is my configuration: MB GIGABYTE MA770T-UD3, AMD Athlon X3 at 2.7 GHz, 2GB DDR2, AMD Radeon 5750 1GB, PSU Chieftec GPS-550.
I used HDTune 2.55 for testing. I also attached a graph where you can see some amazing performance fluctuations.
I wonder if somebody can come to a conclusion just from looking at this graph.
Thanks to everybody taking the time to enlight me a bit.

With just one graph and no other data, there are several possible causes (including, but not only, the possibility that the disk is at fault). I suggest that extra info to consider includes:

- What's the history? Any previous benchmark graphs on that system & disk, available for comparison? Anything unusual happened before your computer started running slowly?

- If you now repeat that benchmark a few times, is the shape of the graph always the same?

- What does the full, raw SMART data for that disk show?

Run MHDD and try to make a full scan, you will get more info than the pretty graph of HDDTune.
As Vulcan said SMART Data would be very helpful to point out if HD is healty or not.

You may also use HDDTune in a live windows environment so other software would not
interfere with the disk benchmark.

This looks to be your boot drive?

Windows polls drives often for updates to pagefile, etc. This is what you are seeing, slave it to a system and you will see better results, or as mentioned; use MHDD as it will not poll the drive unless you ask it to with a command.


Regards,

First I thought that the partitions are not properly aligned, and it was true. Afterwards I aligned the drive with Acronis WD Align, but the harddisk is still very slow. So, I wanted to test it in another computer. And what a surprise it was to see the drive working properly, as you can see also from the graph attached here. I also tested another of my drives in the first computer and the graph shows the same performance fluctuations also for this drive.(graph also attached)
Well, I guess that the problem has to be related to some unappropriate bios settings or bad windows drivers.
I will try MHDD, but it seems that the problem is somewhere else here. Btw what options should I use when testing with MHDD? Because i really dont want to destroy the data on the drives I want to test.
Thank you guys.

You haven't supplied answers to some of my earlier questions, so I'll just give some brief comments.


Mis-aligned partitions were never going to be the cause of the benchmark graph which you first included.


Great! That proves the "slowness" is not a disk problem. If you need more help, remember this is not a PC repair or support forum.


Just FYI, I cannot see how any disk-related BIOS setting could cause the graph shapes you have sent. Also drivers would not be near the top of my list of suspects, again due to the graph shapes. I see that you're deciding what tests to run now, and you've shown this isn't a disk problem, so I wish you good luck.

My mistake, I forgot to answer. Sorry for that! But, if I decided what tests to run, that doesn't mean that I'm not open to sugeestions or I don' t want to see what others have to say.
This discussion is still open from my perspective and I reaally didn' t mean to disrespect in any way.

Now to your questioning about the drive:

- I dont have any other previous graphs for comparison and nothing unusual happened before that.( I would have mentioned it already)

- Of course I repeated the benchmark several times before posting here and got similar results.(Btw I always repeat tests)

- As for the full raw SMART data, I used CrystalDiskInfo to get that raw smart data and you can see it from the pictures at the bottom of this post.

______

I also visually checked the cables and conectors to be sure that they are not faulty.(I also changed them with new ones just to be sure).
I did a memory check and no problems were found by the software.
I did a bios reset to its default values.
In the meantime I found out that my other drive has some problems, as you can see from the picture below.

And as I said before, I've been the whole time open for sugeestions.
Good luck to you too, but I guess it isn't about luck here. And also thank you for your time, Sir.

I didn't think you meant any disrespect. Simply that you had found the problem (i.e. it is not a disk problem) and you weren't answering the earlier questions. That combination usually means that the person has decided to progress on their own, and the thread here is over.

I've already been helping several other people on an electronics board today, so I only have time to give brief comments here:


I don't understand what is still "open" for this forum. Your test results have showed the problem is related to the system, not the disk (i.e. move the disk, then performance = OK). This is a disk forum. Perhaps you will get some suggestions here, but since other types of support (PC / Windows etc.) are off-topic, then you should probably use other sources of support, as I mentioned.


Thanks but please remember that people here don't know you. We can't assume you would have said if something unusual had happened. In fact it is very common for new members requesting help not to mention useful information until they are asked. Therefore people who reply often spend lots of time trying to carefully ask the best questions that they can ask, in the time available, in order to try to help someone who is requesting help.


Thanks, but I did not ask if you got "similar results" - I asked if you got the same shape. After your disk-swap results, I am now confident that you did not get the same shape each time with the WD disk, because that result means the disk is the problem. That is why I was asking that specific question. If the shape is only "similar" but not "the same", then this points more towards the system (i.e. outside the disk) as the cause - which we now know is the situation for you. I was trying to help you to identify whether the disk or the system, was the likely cause. Of course you have now identified the cause is not the disk, but we did not know that you had another system available to you for disk swapping.


Thanks. I see no problems reported for the WD drive, and slight signs of concerns with the Samsung. In order to prevent you being misled by any possible Samsung drive misbehaviour also causing throughput "spikes", I would not use it for troubleshooting your current system problem, if I was working on this. It is like fault-finding using a faulty oscilloscope - it can be difficult to know whether your test equipment, or the system, is causing any problem that you think you are measuring.

There are many different troubleshooting approaches you could use for the PC problem. Since you say that you have already tried a different SATA cable, I would suggest you start by trying different motherboard SATA ports, and also look for Windows error messages in the system event log, which may give you a clue about what type of problem is happening. I can think of many different things to try, but I have run out of time for now. Perhaps others will help you with your PC problem, although since it is off-topic I suggest you don't expect it. As I said before, sincere good luck!