Hi all, The problem I'm having is that my HD (Samsung SV8004H 80GB 5.4krpm) periodically "stalls". Basically, the HD light remains solidly lit for anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds, and the computer is very unresponsive during that time. Because the light's solid, the HD is either not reading or writing anything but has some kind of error, or is furiously reading/writing (I can't tell because there's lots of background noise), but the comp enters a "frozen" state for the duration. It is especially accentuated when I first start up and after playing certain games, like unreal tournament 2003. I feel that I've tried everything to remedy the problem, but with no luck. I flashed my BIOS with the latest version, made sure it was properly configured, installed latest VIA 4in1's, made sure Windows was using proper drive settings, and made sure virtual mem was configured properly. That is what I'm thinking the problem is related to: VM. But with 512MB of ram, I don't think I should be seeing this much swapping. I'm also thinking of upgrading to a bigger, and more importantly, faster drive in the near future as well. I'm hoping that that will help. One side note: I had a similar problem with my bro's comp where both the HD and CD light (even if there was no CD in the drive) would solidly illuminate for about 10 - 20 seconds in which his computer would also enter a "frozen" state. This turned out to be a problem of trying to use DMA mode with the old CD-ROM drive, and was easily remedied. I'm using DMA mode for all of my drives, because I think my new CD/DVD drives can handle it. Besides, when I switch them to PIO mode, the problem is still there, so I don't think this is related, but I can't be sure. Anyway, can anyone think of what could be wrong? Or am I simply demanding too much of my hardware and this is actually normal for my slower drive? Any help appreciated, thanks.

Do you have a CD ROM drive on the same chain as the Hard drive? Having a slow ATA device on the same chain as an ATA100/133 device ~can~ degrade the performance of both. Try pulling the connectors from the CD ROM drive, power back on and see if the problem persists. If that fixes it you will need to bump the CD ROM onto it's own chain. If all your IDE channels are currently full I would recomend running your two hard drives, assuming they are of equal speed, on one chain and any additional devices on the other. Your hard drive should be plenty fast enough. I would also check to see if your computer is doing any background indexing services.

No, the HD is on its own interface, and the CD-RW and DVD-ROM share the other chain. But as for background indexing services, where would I find that information out?

I am using Windows 2000 pro so your location may be different. START->SETTINGS->CONTROL PANEL->ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS->SERVICES Open services and locate "Indexing Service" in the list. Set the "Startup Type" to "manual". I cannot confirm if that is in the Win XP Home version or not, but give it a shot. If your hard drive is REALLY full this may cause slowdown. Also: Have you tried unplugging both your CD Drives and see if the problem still occurs?

Oh... and is your CD-RW a TDK VeloCD Burner?

Well, I checked the Indexing Services out, it was already set to manual. Earlier today I disconnected the CD drives, but still to no avail. Because of that, I'm thinking it's Windows related, and there are so many factors that could cause this problem that I don't think it's worthwhile to pursue. I guess I'll just wait till the next major version of Windows and hope taht that will solve my problem ;) Whatever the case, I am going to upgrade my HD anyway to a 7200rpm model. I doubt it will help this problem, but I'll report back to this forum if it does. And finally, no, I don't have a TDK VeloCD Burner.

Actually, there is one more think I should mention. Do you think the fact that the volume is a FAT32 partition would make a difference? It was FAT32 when I got it (I didn't build this system myself) and the NTFS conversion utility built-in to WinXP doesn't work. The conversion process fails at several directories. Again, do you think this would make a difference?