Ok, bit of background to my problem.
Harddrive currently in use is a 160gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, purchased many moons ago. Just before xmas, I upgraded my system to a Q6600, IP35, new ram and 8800 gts (a month later they bring out the GT -_-)
Anyway, what this effectively means is that my Hdd is now the oldest component in my case. When I reinstalled everything with the new components, everything worked fine, I loved the performance boost from my P4, and adored the fact I could now multitask brilliantly, and everything loaded super quick.
Recently though, the bubble has burst, and for whatever reason my pc has suddenly become sluggish and might as well be a P4 now for how fast it goes. If the pc is left for more than 5 mins (even on the log in screen) and is then asked to do anything, such as, log in, open the start menu, open freaking PAINT, it takes an AGE to do it, and its doing my head in. The odd thing is though, the pc doesnt 'sound' as though its trying to do anything. None of the fans speed up, and there is no discernable noise increase you might associate with a pc trying to do something simple that takes 5 minutes+
Anyway, downloaded HD tune, ran a 'read' test, got this:
Now, after looking at the benchmarks posted by other users, I can see that either A) theres something seriously wrong with this drive, or 2) Ive successfully used it long enough to warrant an upgrade to something better ^_^
If though anyone can help me figure out what the problem might be and help me fix it, id be extremely grateful
Few more examples of problems experienced:
Computer boots up, log in screen appears, if logged in straight away the computer runs fine, if left for 5 mins+ approx, computer is very slow at logging in and loading everything up.
When exiting a program/webpage whatever that causes the screen to refresh, icons are loaded slowly, though still quite quickly. Couple of weeks ago, for some reason, all of te desktop icons lost their image (default white rectangle for unknown file type) image could be restored through manually telling it where the image was, issue seemingly resolved itself a week later, no idea of cause/solution
When computer logged on, if left for any amount of time, first actions take a while to complete, openining start menu is slow, clicking on firefox icon in start menu quicklist is slow, opening firefox is slow, but once opened the programs run 100% fine.
Same as above but firefox is still open, trying to open start menu/word document on desktop is slow, computer seemingly freezes, same as above, when trying to complete task, and yet, alt tabbing allows firefox/already open program to be used 100% normally, but if and when start does open and a program is selected, start menu will be stuck open as it loads whatever program and will be over 100% working firefox.
Hope the above makes sense, extremely grateful to anyone who can help
Harddrive currently in use is a 160gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, purchased many moons ago. Just before xmas, I upgraded my system to a Q6600, IP35, new ram and 8800 gts (a month later they bring out the GT -_-)
Anyway, what this effectively means is that my Hdd is now the oldest component in my case. When I reinstalled everything with the new components, everything worked fine, I loved the performance boost from my P4, and adored the fact I could now multitask brilliantly, and everything loaded super quick.
Recently though, the bubble has burst, and for whatever reason my pc has suddenly become sluggish and might as well be a P4 now for how fast it goes. If the pc is left for more than 5 mins (even on the log in screen) and is then asked to do anything, such as, log in, open the start menu, open freaking PAINT, it takes an AGE to do it, and its doing my head in. The odd thing is though, the pc doesnt 'sound' as though its trying to do anything. None of the fans speed up, and there is no discernable noise increase you might associate with a pc trying to do something simple that takes 5 minutes+
Anyway, downloaded HD tune, ran a 'read' test, got this:
Now, after looking at the benchmarks posted by other users, I can see that either A) theres something seriously wrong with this drive, or 2) Ive successfully used it long enough to warrant an upgrade to something better ^_^
If though anyone can help me figure out what the problem might be and help me fix it, id be extremely grateful
Few more examples of problems experienced:
Computer boots up, log in screen appears, if logged in straight away the computer runs fine, if left for 5 mins+ approx, computer is very slow at logging in and loading everything up.
When exiting a program/webpage whatever that causes the screen to refresh, icons are loaded slowly, though still quite quickly. Couple of weeks ago, for some reason, all of te desktop icons lost their image (default white rectangle for unknown file type) image could be restored through manually telling it where the image was, issue seemingly resolved itself a week later, no idea of cause/solution
When computer logged on, if left for any amount of time, first actions take a while to complete, openining start menu is slow, clicking on firefox icon in start menu quicklist is slow, opening firefox is slow, but once opened the programs run 100% fine.
Same as above but firefox is still open, trying to open start menu/word document on desktop is slow, computer seemingly freezes, same as above, when trying to complete task, and yet, alt tabbing allows firefox/already open program to be used 100% normally, but if and when start does open and a program is selected, start menu will be stuck open as it loads whatever program and will be over 100% working firefox.
Hope the above makes sense, extremely grateful to anyone who can help
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