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Ultra low HD performance - incl. burst. Driver/firmware failure?

post #1 of 25
4/3/10 at 6:48pm
Thread Starter 
Hey guys.
On the search for the reason for my dropping out audio playback I came across HD tune pro. It tells me:

avg. transfer rate: 3 MB/s
burst: 3.1 MB/s
access time: 17.7ms
CPU usage: 99.8 %
SMART: all fine
error scan: fine

WTF???

see proof in the att.!

It´s a Western Dig. 320GB 2.5" IDE drive "WDC WD3200BEVE" etc.
I already did a defrag, there is ca. 35% free space on the drive, I have a rather fresh Win XP running and UDMA5 enabled, NCQ off.

Must be the some serious driver/firmware issue cause I put my old system HD back in the laptop and it gave normal values.

How to find out?
Any ideas about some more testing?

Thanks for help!
W.
LL
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post #2 of 25
4/4/10 at 5:37am
Your comp model? The old drive model and specs?

cheers ...
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post #3 of 25
4/4/10 at 7:48am
Thread Starter 
Hi!

Sorry- I just updated my signature.

I already had two smaller drives (IDE) in this notebook
- 40GB Hitachi Travelstar IC25N040ATMR04-0(the original one)
- 160GB Samsung HM160HC

Both worked fine as the WD3200BEVE did too. I have it in since ca. 3 months, made a fresh XP install on it and it was working good. Last week then problems started.

I put the Hitachi back in, cause it still has the old system on it, to check if it´s about my board. But- the Hitachi behaved normally giving rates about 20-30 MB/s, 80MB/s burst etc.

I hope I gave you all infos now!

Thanx and cheers,
W.
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post #4 of 25
4/4/10 at 9:05am
This might be a shot in the dark. How about partitioning the 320GB into x 160GB and try again?

My thinking is that after a few months of usage the "defragmentation" could cause the system bus to go bonk due to larger drive (?)

cheers ...
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post #5 of 25
4/4/10 at 9:26am
Thread Starter 
Hi, thanx again.

I dont know if I got you right.

But I did the defrag only after the problem appeared.
Would very much like to solve the problem without reformatting. Would take long to clone it, etc.

But- I found out when inserting a HD Clone boot CD that it measures different speeds compared to when XP is running: "more than 27 MB/s possible.."

Maybe this is another hint!?

W.
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post #6 of 25
4/4/10 at 9:33am
Actually that confirms what I was thinking of. That the XP OS on this comp is having issue with communicating the 320GB at native speed, thus my suggestion to partition it into 2 and see.

You mentioned that it started last week, is there a restore point that you can use?

cheers ...
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post #7 of 25
4/4/10 at 11:16am
I am with qhn's thoughts. I can all but rule out mechanical HDD issue. The fact that your HDTune is basically a flatline shows the bus is holding things back bottlenecking. It looks exactly how a fast external HDD can look on a USB 2.0 when the HDD lowest speed is faster than the USB will allow.

Why it is happening escapes me. You say you are running UDMA5 and other disk works correct. That throws me a little on ideas. In deice manager all looks good? Are there BIOS options.

Why do you say you have NCQ turned off? NCQ is a SATA feature, XP does not have native SATA support and your drive is IDE so just curious as to why you would have that option. Are you running the IDE on a SATA emulating IDE? Is that even possible.

Sorry I don't have the answer if I think of something will post back.
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post #8 of 25
4/4/10 at 11:47am
Thread Starter 
Hey guys.
I guess there would be a restore point as the feature is still switched on in the System Settings. I somehow hesitate to do this as I never did it before would have to backup again etc. But if there is no other solution..

It´s just that HD Tune told me NCQ is off which is then obvious why. And it says UDMA5 running.

I try cloning my drive now to have a backup and then see with what to continue.

I bet all this is about something really stupid Like when you search the whole office for a screw which you find in your pocket. At least you get to know your office

THANX!
W.
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post #9 of 25
4/4/10 at 11:53am
Look in device manager what does it say about HDD?
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post #10 of 25
4/4/10 at 12:15pm
Thread Starter 
I´ve sure been to device manager.
Nothing special, I guess:

device path/no is 0
write cache is activated
it´s still indexed for search
drivers are disk.sys and partmgr.sys

But it came to my mind that I recently changed some file access rights for my user account (with admin rights) when I was setting up a password protection. I checked a box there that said something like "make files inaccessible for other users".. which then took a while to apply. Maybe it´s a rights problem with some essential stuff. I also have on recurring error message from the system log:


Ereignistyp: Fehler
Ereignisquelle: DCOM
Ereigniskategorie: Keine
Ereigniskennung: 10016
Datum: 04.04.2010
Zeit: 16:31:40
Benutzer: NT-AUTORITÄT\NETZWERKDIENST
Computer: MASTER
Beschreibung:
Durch die Berechtigungseinstellungen (Computerstandard) wird der SID (S-1-5-20) für Benutzer NT-AUTORITÄT\NETZWERKDIENST keine Aktivierungberechtigung (Lokal) für die COM-Serveranwendung mit CLSID
{A4199E55-EBB9-49E5-AF1A-7A5408B2E206}
gewährt. Diese Sicherheitsberechtigung kann mit dem Verwaltungsprogramm für Komponentendienste geändert werden.

Says something about (security) rights. Helpful?

Cheers,
W.
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post #11 of 25
4/4/10 at 12:31pm
Yep - restore it back to "free" access for all. It seems that the drive is being "confused"

cheers ...
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post #12 of 25
4/4/10 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfgangesgang View Post
I also have on recurring error message from the system log:


Ereignistyp: Fehler
Ereignisquelle: DCOM
Ereigniskategorie: Keine
Ereigniskennung: 10016
Datum: 04.04.2010
Zeit: 16:31:40
Benutzer: NT-AUTORITÄT\NETZWERKDIENST
Computer: MASTER
Beschreibung:
Durch die Berechtigungseinstellungen (Computerstandard) wird der SID (S-1-5-20) für Benutzer NT-AUTORITÄT\NETZWERKDIENST keine Aktivierungberechtigung (Lokal) für die COM-Serveranwendung mit CLSID
{A4199E55-EBB9-49E5-AF1A-7A5408B2E206}
gewährt. Diese Sicherheitsberechtigung kann mit dem Verwaltungsprogramm für Komponentendienste geändert werden.

Says something about (security) rights. Helpful?

Cheers,
W.
Quote:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10016
Date: 04/04/2010
Time: 16:31:40
User: NT AUTHORITY \ NETWORK SERVICE
Computer: MASTER
Description:
With the permission settings (computer standard), the SID (S-1-5-20) for user NT AUTHORITY \ NETWORK SERVICE no activation authorization (Local) for the COM Server application with CLSID
(A4199E55-EBB9-49E5-AF1A-7A5408B2E206)
granted. This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.
For the non German speakers. Last line do you want to modify with the tool?

Yea with your high CPU usage that could be what is bottlenecking I would revert back.
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post #13 of 25
4/4/10 at 1:04pm
My take is that the tweaking of the permission has blocked some functionality from accessing needed process and/or resources to perform certain tasks.

cheers ...
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post #14 of 25
4/4/10 at 1:57pm
Thread Starter 
Hey.
So- you think the error message has sth. to do with the rights problem? It´s hard to find the process with the respective number cause you cannot search the component services thing for it.
Anyway my next step is cloning the system partition of the 320GB drive to my old 160GB Samsung (1st try didn´t work with Clonezilla - hd doesn´t wanna boot). Then see if it works and if not I will try what happens when restoring system point.

Good!?
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post #15 of 25
4/4/10 at 2:06pm
Thread Starter 
Wait- weird:
Although HD Tune states I am using UDMA5, the Device Manager (Primary IDE channel, device 0, this should be it) says I am in PIO Mode although "DMA when possible" is checked. Secondary Channel (CD-ROM) is in UDMA2.

So - something seems to be disabling DMA. But why does HD Tune give another value. What´s right now? Can this have sth. to do with the rights problem?

Man, slowly but surely it gets to the core.

Cheers,
W.
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post #16 of 25
4/4/10 at 2:31pm
Check if your BIOS has DMA option?

HDTune reads HDD info from a text file on the HDD not from an actual diagnostic.

When researching last night I came across the PIO issue. But two things. You said other drive worked fine and said UDMA was on. Looks like not so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by powerpack View Post
You say you are running UDMA5 and other disk works correct. That throws me a little on ideas. In device manager all looks good? Are there BIOS options.
This is from M$
Quote:
To enable DMA mode using the Device Manager
1.
Open Device Manager.
2.
Double-click IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers to display the list of controllers and channels.
3.
Right-click the icon for the channel to which the device is connected, select Properties, and then click the Advanced Settings tab.
4.
In the Current Transfer Mode drop-down box, select DMA if Available if the current setting is "PIO Only."
If the drop-down box already shows "DMA if Available" but the current transfer mode is PIO, then the user must toggle the settings. That is:
•Change the selection from "DMA if available" to PIO only, and click OK.
•Then repeat the steps above to change the selection to DMA if Available.
XP reverts to lower DMA and finally PIO when it logs 6 CRC errors.

Your DVD in UDMA2 is normal UDMA2 handles the DVD speed so that is not a problem here.

Try this but with your system it could be of an age where certain issues prevented seeing above like 139GB? I can't help but wonder if the HDD's size is part of the underlying issue.

If you put the smaller HDD in and it reads UDMA I suspect the 6 CRC errors is your issue and the change in "DMA" will nit resolve.

Go to work! this can be fixed.
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post #17 of 25
4/4/10 at 3:57pm
Thread Starter 
Hey.
So - I checked all this. No reason for PIO found.. SMART says no CRC errors. Or is there a better way to check?

Then I tried to clonezilla my drive - it worked 3 hours ago (produced a non-bootable copy though) - now it won´t start up at all: Disk error drive EF etc.



The only two possibilities remaining are:
Uninstalling IDE driver.
Go back with system restore.
I´ll try
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post #18 of 25
4/4/10 at 4:18pm
Thread Starter 
Jippieee!
Problem solved - UDMA5 back!
Check this short tutorial:
http://winhlp.com/node/10
I used the downloadable Visual Basic Script, run it and after reboot (man it was so quick!) my baby was back again!

Remains to aks what the reason was? I hope it wasn´t like the error rate CRC errors that have been mentioned. But then I should notice cause it will fall back in PIO again. I will go with frequent backups.

Thanks for all your help!
Happy Easter and goodnight!

W.
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post #19 of 25
4/4/10 at 4:38pm
I found that but I was not ready to recommend loading a script this soon. I think good you did I just do not recommend things that have a risk. And having you play with the registry was also soon.

Very good you figured out and did congrats. Read the entire link you made. It talks about good luck until this happens again. It links long term work around from M$. With a very fast skim it looks like a reg edit to increase the default # CRC errors from 6 to more. I would just keep using and see how it goes.

What you did worked and seems fine but always be careful. It would be one of the easiest was for malicious code to borked your system beyond belief. What you did is one of the most dangerous things a user can do. Having a script change reg values.
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post #20 of 25
4/4/10 at 6:50pm
Thread Starter 
Hi Powerpack and friends!

I just lost my temper: I realized too late that the HD wants to play with me (big wavs were playing worse than 128s MP3s so I could have noticed). Instead I was searching for malicious or buggy services.

All I ever had were HDs crushing down immediately. I even hesitated to uninstall the IDE driver because it seemeed a tough step. But - as one of my next would have been to restore a system point I didn´t read this manual thouroughly and went for a slight manipulation beforehand - as it seemed a path rather used more often. I admit I have made things worse with actions like that before.

Hehe, yes, quite risky but in my situation The whole story cost me 1.5 days of square eyes... And I love my 7 year old baby so much

If anybody would just tell me how to monitor my HD as SMART values don´t seem to be a good reference.

Cheers,
W.
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