strange hard drive behaviour, stop-start

  • Thread starter Thread starter gwyn lintern
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gwyn lintern

I have a strange thing happening- probably hardware related. I am using an
older libretto 70 and 6Gb harddrive as an MP3 player. It used to work fine.
Now, after several months not using it, it (drive access) has slowed down
significantly so
that the playback of media, streaming or MP3 is very shaky (stop-start). I
can't think of anything I did to it in that time. Playback software makes no
difference.
The strange part is, if I make the HDD do something else (almost anything
else so that it is spinning 'harder' or reading more, then the audio plays
fine. By asking the computer to do something else, it is almost as though it
wakes up the drive in some way so that it pays attention to its job. I think
this may also be happening with any type of drive access, not just media,
such as downloading etc., however I don't know how to test drive speed under
different 'loads'. It is particularly noticable with the media files as I
can hear the music stop/starting. I have done a disk check, and defrag, both
are fine. There is ample space on the drive for swapping. Any advice on this
appreciated. Thanks.
 
I have a strange thing happening- probably hardware related. I am using an
older libretto 70 and 6Gb harddrive as an MP3 player. It used to work fine.
Now, after several months not using it, it (drive access) has slowed down
significantly so
that the playback of media, streaming or MP3 is very shaky (stop-start). I
can't think of anything I did to it in that time. Playback software makes no
difference.
The strange part is, if I make the HDD do something else (almost anything
else so that it is spinning 'harder' or reading more, then the audio plays
fine. By asking the computer to do something else, it is almost as though it
wakes up the drive in some way so that it pays attention to its job. I think
this may also be happening with any type of drive access, not just media,
such as downloading etc., however I don't know how to test drive speed under
different 'loads'. It is particularly noticable with the media files as I
can hear the music stop/starting. I have done a disk check, and defrag, both
are fine. There is ample space on the drive for swapping. Any advice on this
appreciated. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Defrag the drive and check that it's in,"Dma" mode?
What operating system?



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gwyn said:
I have a strange thing happening- probably hardware related. I am
using an older libretto 70 and 6Gb harddrive as an MP3 player. It
used to work fine. Now, after several months not using it, it
(drive access) has slowed down significantly so that the playback
of media, streaming or MP3 is very shaky (stop-start). I can't
think of anything I did to it in that time. Playback software
makes no difference.

The strange part is, if I make the HDD do something else (almost
anything else so that it is spinning 'harder' or reading more,
then the audio plays fine. By asking the computer to do something
else, it is almost as though it wakes up the drive in some way so
that it pays attention to its job. I think this may also be
Click to expand...
.... snip ...

Have you got it set to spin down after a short inactivity period?
 
It is windows 98. The drive is a fujitsu laptop 6Gb, however windows
recognises it as a standard hard disk (in device manager). There is no dma
option. It used to work with this configuration though, something must have
changed the drive access time. I have all the sleep, rest, hibernate, power
setting modes to stay on full while the computer is plugged in. Almost ready
to give up... I will see if there is a driver specific to this fujitsu
drive, even though it used to work perfectly fine as is. If that doesn't
work, will confine my libretto to datalogging. Thanks for any forthcoming
advice.

Gwyn.
 
It is windows 98. The drive is a fujitsu laptop 6Gb, however windows
recognises it as a standard hard disk (in device manager). There is no dma
option. It used to work with this configuration though, something must have
changed the drive access time. I have all the sleep, rest, hibernate, power
setting modes to stay on full while the computer is plugged in. Almost ready
to give up... I will see if there is a driver specific to this fujitsu
drive, even though it used to work perfectly fine as is. If that doesn't
work, will confine my libretto to datalogging. Thanks for any forthcoming
advice.

Gwyn.
Click to expand...

I'd be very surprised if it,"Not" DMA capable.
You may need to install a mother board specific set of IDE controller
drivers.This is,"Not" the same as the hard drive drivers which are
best left as Windows plain Vanilla.
For an SIS chip set system this is how they should look,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/stuff/ide.gif
e.g the controller should reflect the chip set.SIS/VIA/Intel etc.
You can use AIDA32,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/stuff/diag.html
to find out more info about your system and then go to either mother
board maker's site or the MB chip set maker's site to get them.
My updated drivers are contained for win98 in the SIS AGP drivers
packs.VIA boards are contained in the 4 in 1 drivers packs.
It sounds to me that this is what's missing or have got damaged and
the drive/s are in,"Mdos compatibility mode" so also click here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/stuff/mode.html

HTH :)







--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
email shepATpartyheld.de
Free songs download,
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm
 
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