Extremely slow HDD - New gaming rig

[Djak372]

Hi people,

I just built a new gaming rig with all new hardware except for the HDD, which I was previously using on another motherboard and Windows XP, which worled absolutely fine.

I formatted the hard drive and did a fresh install of Windows 7 - 64 bit, and then : everything is extremely slow.

The HDD actually makes very strange noises. It sounds like it boots up, and then down. Sort of like if you would open and close the power supply continuously.

To open the trash bin, I actually have to time my click with the sound going up.

I tried installing Windows 7 on another hard drive, same model, but to no avail : the same error happens.

Here are my specs :


POWER SUPPLY
Corsair
TX650M

MOTHERBOARD
Asus
M5A97 R2.0

RAM 2x4GB
amd
DDR3 1.6 GHz Unbuffered

CPU
FX 8320
8-core
3.5 GHz
125 W

HARD DRIVE
Western Digital 160 GB
SATA connection

------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for any advice you might have !

 

[Djak372]

Alright I found the exact model for the two hard drives I tried using for my brand new gaming rig :

wdc wd1600jd-22hbb0

http://www.impactcomputers.com/wd1600jd-22hbb0.html

Also, I noticed that the hard drive actually boots normally and makes no sound until a couple of seconds after getting in the desktop.

The weird noise and slowdown actually begin a short time after getting to the desktop, so I do get normal speed for a little while.

 

[ronintexas]

They are SATA I drives. Makes a big difference.

I would check a couple of things:
1) How much free space on the drive (if over 75% - this may be an issue - over 95% it is an issue).
2) What is your Virtual Memory settings? With 8GB RAM, it shouldn't be an issue.
3) What are the indexing settings for Windows 7? If you have indexing turned on, and it is trying to index files, this could be an issue. Index only folders you are searching often.
4) Check you startup options - CCleaner (a free download) http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner Will tell you your startup items. Is there a lot of items starting up?
5) Check task manager - are system resources (RAM, CPU) utilized high? What are applications that are utilizing the RAM/CPU?

 

[Djak372]

Alright well I just bought a WDBAAY0010HNC-NRsN 1TB and everything has been working fine since.

I guess the problem was, in fact, linked to the slow speed of the HDDs, which probably made them incompatible with Windows 7.

Thank you all for your advice, I really appreciate !

 

[Djak372]

Best answer selected by Djak372.