Hd Expert Needed

[TASOS]

I run Sandra 2001 Pro and came up with some strange results for my drives benchmark.

My WD 20GB BB ATA 100 7200RPM scores 10800 when the sample
of Sandra database for ATA 100 / 7200 scores 24000.

Also my 2nd HD a Fujitsu ATA 33 4500RPM scores 9400

What is happening?
What should i check?

This is my 2nd pc...and it's not o\ced

WinME
P3-1000
MSI 6309 v2.0

[jazztrumpet216]

Is your 2nd HD ATA33 on the same channel as that Western Digital ATA-100 HD??? That could be the bottleneck, the channel will only run as fast as the slowest HD on it.

[TASOS]

No
My WD is master and my Fujitsu is slave
On different channels and with the proper cables

I also checked that my DMA is enabled

What else should i check?

[TASOS]

I also tried 2 different ATA100 cables.....nothing still the same

[Jon]

9400 out of a U33 4500RPM is a correct score. What are you expecting out of it?

Oops...noticed the 10800 out of the WD drive. Have you tried running something other than a Sandra bench? Maybe try HDTach on it. I find very discernable results out of the Sandra disk bench myself most of the time. I find it quite unreliable.

[TASOS]

Give me some links....where to find similar benchmarks for the HD.
Also any other advice?

Via drivers 4.36....update them probably?

I really dont know....what else?

Thank you

[TASOS]

Please....some help here.
I really must know if something is wrong with this HD.
Now that i still have a warranty !!!

[Teacher_Doug]

the link to hdtach is here HDTach (http://www.tcdlabs.com)

[TASOS]

Ok.
I installed and run the 2.52 cause 2.61 was giving me blue screens.

Here is the results....are they normal for an ATA100 / 7200 RPM ?

[TASOS]

Here is my score from Sandra 2001 Pro

[funnyperson1]

well it seems like the results on HDTACH are about as good as the Sandra ones for their sample drive.....though according to newegg a 7200 rpm WD drive should have an 8.9ms seek time...

[Mr B]

Silly question here, as I'm not familiar with your mobo...

Does your motherboard support ATA100, or only ATA66?? If it only does ATA66, that might have something to do with it.

Like I said, I'm unfamiliar w/ your board there... just a thought.

(I'm not sure how much of a difference ATA66 to ATA100 would be, in that benchmark either...might not be all that much (or it could be...hard drive benchies isn't one of my areas of "expertise"...;) )

[Teacher_Doug]

originally posted by TASOS

Here is the results....are they normal for an ATA100 / 7200 RPM

They do look low. I checked with my HD. IBM Deskstar, 7200 rpm, ATA 100..gave a seek time of 9.1, and a speed of 35000.





[I] originally posted by Mr.B

Does your motherboard support ATA100, or only ATA66??

I agree. If your mobo doesn't support ATA100 you can't get that connection.
Even if your mobo does support it, have you set the BIOS. Some boards, like the ABIT KT7RAID does support ATA 100, but only if you connect through the IDE connectors on the RAID, AND you set the BIOS AND the RAID BIOS to support that drive.

ps I found that the ATA 100 cables can be reversed, then they only give you ATA 66

Hope this helps.

:beer:

[TASOS]

1) Yes my mobo is ATA100
2) The cables are inserted correctly

*)There is something wrong with :
1) the HD or
2) the ata controller on the motherboard or
3) wrong settings probably ? or
4) something like file corrupted ?

Please someone got to help me...what else can i check ?

If its the mobo...i still got warranty till May


*)Here is a quick description of the thread for the new viewers:

WD 20GB ATA100/7200 running too low in benchmarks
Connection is correct...ata100 cable used
mobo 6309 ata100
dma enabled
via 4-36 final
WINME
P3-1000 not o\ced pc

Still waiting for solution !!!!


Thank you all

[DJL]

Do you have any virus scanning software running, my drive benchmarks improved by about 1/3 when is uninstalled my virus scanner.

[TASOS]

Please check my thread " Problem with HD ? " ....still havent found
the solution.

Thank you

[CrystalMethod]

Also remember to shut everything else down when you run the bench mark. AIM, ICQ, MBM, your internet connection, etc... Defragging your HDD might help too.
Go here, for your Fujitsu HDD. (http://www.fujitsu.ca/download/hard_drive.html)
There's a bunch of diagnostic tools specifically for your hardware. There's also a firmware update at the bottom of the page.

Go here for your WD HDD. (http://www.westerndigital.com/support/download/index.asp)
These are the diagnostic tools for the Western Digital HDD's.

If you have any problems running them, post again.

[TASOS]

Well, yes i disabled Norton and see improvement....but still way out of normal scores.

Sandra 2001 Pro :

1) 10942 with norton enabled
2) 13964 with norton disabled

Still a long way from 24000- upper

[Jon]

Did you ever try another bench program? I don't have links to comparisons but I'll know whether or not if what you get is acceptable or not.

[KaHNZa]

posting another thread asking people to look at your other thread is a no-no.

[Jon]

Originally posted by KaHNZa
posting another thread asking people to look at your other thread is a no-no.

Yes it is. Don't do it again.

[Shadow ÒÓ]

Originally posted by jazztrumpet216
Is your 2nd HD ATA33 on the same channel as that Western Digital ATA-100 HD??? That could be the bottleneck, the channel will only run as fast as the slowest HD on it.

man...I keep chasing these answers! THAT IS NOT TRUE! The data will transfer at it's maximum controller speed. In other words, if your IDE controller will accept ATA 100, your drives will run at ATA 100 if they are capable. The only time they will slow down is when you transfer data between a slower drive and a faster one. The faster drive will slow down to the slower ones speed. ONLY when transfering data between them.

umm...is DMA enabled on that IDE channel?

[TASOS]

First of all sorry for my new thread...but i wanted to change the title of the thread so that users with more knowlegde in HD's would see it and help me out.

Now.....
I will repeat my story from the beggining including and all those things i already done.

1)My mobo is MSI 6309 V2.0B and its ATA100
2)My HD's are properly connected and with the correct cable types
3)This pc is not o\ced
4)I use Via 4.36 final
5)My DMA is enabled on both HD's
6)I have also set the "role" as server for better performance
7)I use WinME

**) My problem is that my WD 20GB ATA100/7200 doesnt perform
like one (see my posts of sandra & hd-tach 2.52)

*) I also used the data lifeguard programm from WD site and reports everything in order.....but the speed is too low

What am i missing?

PLEASE HELP

[MoPMatrix]

Originally posted by Shadow ÒÓ


man...I keep chasing these answers! THAT IS NOT TRUE! The data will transfer at it's maximum controller speed. In other words, if your IDE controller will accept ATA 100, your drives will run at ATA 100 if they are capable. The only time they will slow down is when you transfer data between a slower drive and a faster one. The faster drive will slow down to the slower ones speed. ONLY when transfering data between them.

umm...is DMA enabled on that IDE channel?

Kool that answers a question I had.
I have a ATA 66 - 15GB - 5400 RPM drive now and I'm guna buy an IBM 40GB - ATA100- 7200RM-60GPX and I was hoping I could use both of em on the same IDE cable w/o a bottle neck =)

[funnyperson1]

is there a free version of HDTACH that lets me benchie in XP...the one i dled said i had to register for NT support

[TASOS]

After so many hours of searching and smashing my brain...i found out that there is a bug in Sandra...for the mobo's with 686B chipsets....that's why my scores showed too low.

Oh god..i really didnt knew it...all my friends told me that it was known a long time...( everybody knew it,except me ) lol.

Thanks you all for your help anyway
Tasos