Hard drive busy, busy

[kuliddar]

I've been noticing lately that my hard drive seem to always be busy processing. It doesn't matter what I do...it's as if something is working in the background. Now the only change was last month when my video card died and I replaced it with a new one (Radeon HD7750) but I don't see how it would related...or does it?

In any case, my computer isn't new. It's a Dell Dimension 9200. The current hard drive is the original: A 500gb Samsung HD501LG. I ran a whole bunch of different programs to check the disc such as HDTune and Active Smart and so on. All say drive is ok so I'm confused. The only message I received was from the Performance Monitor saying, "The average disk queue length is 2. The disk may be at its maximum transfer capacity due to throughput and disk seeks".

I had done a clean install about 4 months ago and not even half of what is currently on my HDD is back on as back then I realized I had too many games installed and didn't play them. Hence there is even less data on :/. One thing I can point out is that some of the PC games I will play will make my HDD go berzerk (they didn't before) and some will literally freeze up and crash...some other will freeze for a good 10-15 seconds and then unfreeze.

Any thoughts on the possible problem?

Specs:

Dell Dimension 9200
E6600 DuoCore 2.4ghz
Windows 7 (32bits)
500gb HDD
4gb ddr2 ram
Gigabyte Radeon 7750 - 1GB GDDR5 (Factory Overlocked 880mhz)

 

[kuliddar]

I will try this tonight, I think it does. It came by default with an Nvidia 8600gts back then (the card that died) so never really looked.

Couple things I wanted to point out. Even when idle the HDD is busy and there are no defrags nor antivirus scans. Looking through task manager the disk just spikes randomly while the CPU seems to be doing its regular processing as it should be. As for my games...if I lower the graphic setting below my OLD graphic card setting the games that do crash or freeze seem to be ok which is not normal. The HDD seems to be working less. Others I put it in their full max glory and no problem. I just don't get it :/

 

[Hawkeye22]

You didn't state your OS. If you just reinstalled win 7, it's most likely indexing files. Indexing is more active after an OS install, but later on, it will still index files during idle time. If it's a slow drive like you said, it may just be taking longer than normal so it always appears in use.

As for games, perhaps some of them are hitting the page file a lot harder than other programs or other games.

 

[kuliddar]

You didn't state your OS. If you just reinstalled win 7, it's most likely indexing files. Indexing is more active after an OS install, but later on, it will still index files during idle time. If it's a slow drive like you said, it may just be taking longer than normal so it always appears in use.

As for games, perhaps some of them are hitting the page file a lot harder than other programs or other games.

Thanks Hawkeye....unfortunately indexing is off. I'm using the gaming example since it's the most obvious one, however even just browsing online seems to be a chore and this is for IE, FF and Chrome.

 

[Hawkeye22]

I know you said this started recently and that you reinstalled the OS about 4 months ago, but did you remember to install the chipset drivers at that time? I'm assuming you did or you'd probably have more than that one issue, but I'm trying to cover all the bases.

I wouldn't expect a video card to cause that type of behavior.

 

[kuliddar]

I know you said this started recently and that you reinstalled the OS about 4 months ago, but did you remember to install the chipset drivers at that time? I'm assuming you did or you'd probably have more than that one issue, but I'm trying to cover all the bases.

I wouldn't expect a video card to cause that type of behavior.

The chipset driver in not compatible with Win7, just XP/Vista. However I've been using Win7 since it's release and never had an issue. I also did a CPU diagnostic and it passed.
Just to make sure, I checked if indexing was truly off and it was.

For the heck of it I downloaded Razor's Game Booster to see if it would make a difference. All it did was temporarily disable Window's update but the whole issue remained and not long after that my HDD went in full overload and I froze up and got kicked back to the desktop (was trying out EQ2).

 

[Hawkeye22]

The chipset driver in not compatible with Win7, just XP/Vista. However I've been using Win7 since it's release and never had an issue. I also did a CPU diagnostic and it passed.
Just to make sure, I checked if indexing was truly off and it was.

For the heck of it I downloaded Razor's Game Booster to see if it would make a difference. All it did was temporarily disable Window's update but the whole issue remained and not long after that my HDD went in full overload and I froze up and got kicked back to the desktop (was trying out EQ2).

No chipset driver is a real problem. Are you sure about this. If you didn't install your chipset drivers, you'll most likely see some unkown devices in your device manager, possibly under "system". If you built this computer, the motherboard vendor's web site should have newer chipset drivers unless your motherboard is really old.

Also, I'd try using the vista drivers if there are none for win 7. They should be compatible. Just be sure to get the correct version, 32 bit or 64 bit.

 

[kuliddar]

The chipset driver in not compatible with Win7, just XP/Vista. However I've been using Win7 since it's release and never had an issue. I also did a CPU diagnostic and it passed.
Just to make sure, I checked if indexing was truly off and it was.

For the heck of it I downloaded Razor's Game Booster to see if it would make a difference. All it did was temporarily disable Window's update but the whole issue remained and not long after that my HDD went in full overload and I froze up and got kicked back to the desktop (was trying out EQ2).

No chipset driver is a real problem. Are you sure about this. If you didn't install your chipset drivers, you'll most likely see some unkown devices in your device manager, possibly under "system". If you built this computer, the motherboard vendor's web site should have newer chipset drivers unless your motherboard is really old.

Also, I'd try using the vista drivers if there are none for win 7. They should be compatible. Just be sure to get the correct version, 32 bit or 64 bit.

This computer is a little over six years old. I actually did tried applying the driver provided by Dell but all I got was a message that the driver was not compatible with Win7.

 

[kuliddar]

Just found an Nvidia 8400 card from a friend so I will swap cards to see what happens there. Looking at all possibilities....

EDIT: Just a quick update that I found the driver chipset through intel's site so I am up to date but no difference in my issue.

 

[kuliddar]

So I tried the GF8400 card and it make no difference. Also earlier, experience a Memory Dump blue screen....a first with this computer. Could my HDD be slowing dying???

 

[Hawkeye22]

If the smart status of the drive reports healthy, it shouldn't be a problem. I still think it's a chipset problem since you say you didn't install them.

As I stated in an earlier post, I'd try using the vista drivers if there are none for win 7. They should be compatible. Just be sure to get the correct version, 32 bit or 64 bit.

 

[kuliddar]

If the smart status of the drive reports healthy, it shouldn't be a problem. I still think it's a chipset problem since you say you didn't install them.

As I stated in an earlier post, I'd try using the vista drivers if there are none for win 7. They should be compatible. Just be sure to get the correct version, 32 bit or 64 bit.

In the end I found the drivers on Intel's site however it did not make a difference. I reformatted my HDD and installing one thing at a time. At this point in time the drive doesn't seem to go crazy, I'm hearing what I'm suppose to hear....normal operations. Bad registry or some program working in the background....dunno. I had scanned for malware and virus' and the results were that nothing bad was on the drive. I do see sometimes since I reformated that the CPU sometimes goes at 100% and that was before I started putting my own stuff back so perhaps it is the CPU that is getting tired. This computer has been used a lot for heavy duty so maybe it's just time to replace in the near future. Once I get a hick up again I'll post it here with the program that did it...maybe someone here would know why.