New 3.5" HDD Causing Lag?

[nick_tang]

Current specs are as followed:

Ryzen 1700 @ 3.8ghz
G Skill Trident Z 16GB @ 3200 MHz
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming 8G
Samsung 960 Evo M.2 SSD 256 GB - Boot Drive
Samsung 850 Evo SSD 500 GB - Steam games etc
EVGA PSU

Hello,

My first build was going perfectly well until I recently installed a WD 4TB Blue 3.5" 5400rpm which I intended to use as an extra storage drive - storing games on Steam that I don't play etc. However, I've been experiencing massive lag even just on my desktop since installing it. It's definitely the new HDD because I uninstalled it and there was no lag after that.

I've run numerous tests such as CHKDSK and Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics on the new HDD and it has passed all tests.

Any suggestions on what I should do?

Thanks

 

[Jwpanz]

When is this lag present? Is it just a constant degradation of performance or only when running certain programs or games?

 

[nick_tang]

When is this lag present? Is it just a constant degradation of performance or only when running certain programs or games?

I noticed that it happened when I had Steam open. I was downloading a game to the 3.5" and thought maybe this was the reason (although the lag is so bad that this can't be normal.) So I closed Steam but the lag still persists.

 

[Rdslw]

are you sure its HDD not PSU ? maybe you're low on power ?
Try mounting it to another PC or though usb adapter

 

[nick_tang]

are you sure its HDD not PSU ? maybe you're low on power ?
Try mounting it to another PC or though usb adapter

I'm using a EVGA G2 650W psu. I assumed that would be enough power?

 

[madmatt30]

are you sure its HDD not PSU ? maybe you're low on power ?
Try mounting it to another PC or though usb adapter

I'm using a EVGA G2 650W psu. I assumed that would be enough power?

More than enough,adding a platter drive would add between 6 & 10w max.

Brand new sata cable used here ?? First thing Id look at if not.
You haven't mentioned the actual motherboard model.

 

[nick_tang]

are you sure its HDD not PSU ? maybe you're low on power ?
Try mounting it to another PC or though usb adapter

I'm using a EVGA G2 650W psu. I assumed that would be enough power?

More than enough,adding a platter drive would add between 6 & 10w max.

Brand new sata cable used here ?? First thing Id look at if not.
You haven't mentioned the actual motherboard model.

My bad - it's an Asrock Taichi

I've used 2 different SATA cables and 2 different ports on the motherboard but no luck

 

[Solandri]

Agreed that flaky SATA cable or SATA port (or even motherboard SATA drivers) is the most likely culprit. Don't rely on Windows to automatically install the correct drivers. If you did, go to your motherboard's website, download the appropriate drivers, and install them manually.

You didn't by chance enable a pagefile on the HDD to try to "save" your SSDs from the wear and tear? Don't do that. Windows considers pagefile access requests the highest priority (it treats them like memory). If the HDD is slow to respond, Windows will freeze everything (even the mouse cursor) while it waits for the HDD to complete a pagefile request. The 5400 RPM WD drives are particularly bad about this because they use an extremely short head parking timer (like 15 seconds), and Windows will pause a split second while it waits for the heads to unpark. (And yes, Windows still likes to play around with the pagefile even if you have plenty of free RAM.)

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3291249/hdd-giving-problems-games.html#19105974

The same probably goes for any type of system operations that may have been directed to the HDD. An interesting one I ran across this past week was Windows Defender being set to scan every file when it was opened, causing lag with all file access operations.

Also try running HD Tune on the drive. The result should be a similar to the picture. If the HDD has problems in certain areas of the platter, it will show up as a large downward spike in the blue line. If it's having problems aligning the heads with the tracks (so it takes multiple rotations to start reading a new file), the yellow dots will be all over the place instead of limited to a clear band of the same height across the entire disk. The regular diagnostic and SMART tools often don't detect this type of failure. I've seen the HDD retry attempts cause stutter before, but since you say this happens even when the drive isn't being used (just connected), this is unlikely to be the cause.

http://www.hdtune.com/

 

[madmatt30]

Assuming you have the nvme plugged into the 1st ultra m2 slot ??

What port is the sata ssd using ??

What ports have you tried the wd drive in ??

You have 2 seperate controllers on that board , the secondary asmedia controller supplies 2 extra ports (a1/a2 - bottom 2 ports on board)

You can split those 2 extra ports to sata or ahci mode independantly from the rest - you may be better trimg one of those ports with the wd & changing i/o mode.

 

[nick_tang]

Agreed that flaky SATA cable or SATA port (or even motherboard SATA drivers) is the most likely culprit. Don't rely on Windows to automatically install the correct drivers. If you did, go to your motherboard's website, download the appropriate drivers, and install them manually.

You didn't by chance enable a pagefile on the HDD to try to "save" your SSDs from the wear and tear? Don't do that. Windows considers pagefile access requests the highest priority (it treats them like memory). If the HDD is slow to respond, Windows will freeze everything (even the mouse cursor) while it waits for the HDD to complete a pagefile request. The 5400 RPM WD drives are particularly bad about this because they use an extremely short head parking timer (like 15 seconds), and Windows will pause a split second while it waits for the heads to unpark. (And yes, Windows still likes to play around with the pagefile even if you have plenty of free RAM.)

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3291249/hdd-giving-problems-games.html#19105974

The same probably goes for any type of system operations that may have been directed to the HDD. An interesting one I ran across this past week was Windows Defender being set to scan every file when it was opened, causing lag with all file access operations.

Also try running HD Tune on the drive. The result should be a similar to the picture. If the HDD has problems in certain areas of the platter, it will show up as a large downward spike in the blue line. If it's having problems aligning the heads with the tracks (so it takes multiple rotations to start reading a new file), the yellow dots will be all over the place instead of limited to a clear band of the same height across the entire disk. The regular diagnostic and SMART tools often don't detect this type of failure. I've seen the HDD retry attempts cause stutter before, but since you say this happens even when the drive isn't being used (just connected), this is unlikely to be the cause.

http://www.hdtune.com/

Hi Solandri,

Thank you for your suggestions. I ran the bat file and still had lag.

Running the HD Tune benchmark, I get the following results:

http://

 

[madmatt30]

^ speeds are fine , you're only showing 2.2tb though??

Partitioned or not formatted properly ??

 

[nick_tang]

Assuming you have the nvme plugged into the 1st ultra m2 slot ??

What port is the sata ssd using ??

What ports have you tried the wd drive in ??

You have 2 seperate controllers on that board , the secondary asmedia controller supplies 2 extra ports (a1/a2 - bottom 2 ports on board)

You can split those 2 extra ports to sata or ahci mode independantly from the rest - you may be better trimg one of those ports with the wd & changing i/o mode.

Hi madmat

Checking my UEFI,

SATA SSD is in SATA3_1

WD is in SATA3_5. I tried it in SATA3_3 previously

NVME is in M2_1 (PCIE).

I'll try the A1/A2 ports now

 

[nick_tang]

^ speeds are fine , you're only showing 2.2tb though??

Partitioned or not formatted properly ??

I did partition it into 2 2TB partitions. But I have since formatted the drive back into 1 4tb to see if that would help - it hasn't.

 

[denizekofficial]

Did you fix the problem?

I have the same problem with the lag(not that noticable but like dragging my mouse trough a mud).

I do not own SSDs but I do own WD 1TB ezex, tried tho most tools to check if somethings wrong with my HDD, but it was healty on the tests, but i do know that it may be problem with it.

Here is why: For example my mouse get sluggish even when doing nothing, task manager shows 0 0 0 0 0 percentage for cpu hdd ram gpu gpu0 or maybe sometimes 1%, but mouse is still sluggish, try to install some small program or something, and i feel the mouse getting so resposnive(but even with more responsivness the problem is still here), after a while the mouse gets to a muddy movement....