The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Why is Dell Inspiron 1520 Hard Drive so slow?

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by bhuether, Sep 21, 2007.

  1. bhuether

    bhuether Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    have Dell Inspiron 1520 with Fujitsu MHW2120BH drive. BIOS shows AHCI. Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controlelrs it shows

    Intel® 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller
    Intel® ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2850

    Why does an ATA controller even show up? And incidentally, when I click Primary IDE Channel it shows the drive in DMA mode 2...

    In any case, when I run HDTach I get avg read 33.8. Seems low compared to SATA figures I have seen. It is lower than many ATA drives!

    Just wondering if this drive is truly operating as SATA drive...

    thanks,

    brian
     
    bhuether, Sep 21, 2007
    #1
  2. nizzy1115

    nizzy1115 Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    2,557
    Messages:
    6,682
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    205
    did you try a defrag first?
     
    nizzy1115, Sep 21, 2007
    #2
  3. mtylerjr

    mtylerjr Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    95
    Messages:
    790
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Is that the 7200RPM drive or the 5400RPM Drive?

    Also, in the Inspiron 1520 Bios, there is a setting for HD speed. The laptop comes with it set to "Normal", but there is a faster "Performance" Setting, that says that it is faster, but "may be noisier"

    My 1520's HD seems pretty fast.

    I have the Hitachi HTS722016K9A300 (love the model number)

    Thats the only drive that shows up in device manager under "Disk Drives"

    under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" I see:

    ATA Channel 0
    Intel(R) 82801 HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller
    Intel(R) ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2850
    Ricoh Memory Stick Controller
    Ricoh MMC Host Controller
    Ricoh xD-Picture Card Controller

    How did you run HDTach? It doesnt appear to be compatible with Vista. At least when I download it and run it it has a popup that says it only works with Win 2000 and XP)

    Have you wiped Vista and installed XP or something? Or are you running it in "compatability mode" ? I imagine that might slow things down.
     
    mtylerjr, Sep 21, 2007
    #3
  4. bhuether

    bhuether Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I reformatted, repartioned and installed XP Pro.

    thanks,

    brian
     
    bhuether, Sep 21, 2007
    #4
  5. mtylerjr

    mtylerjr Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    95
    Messages:
    790
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Hmm. If wiping Vista and installing XP slowed things down that much, I think there might be a problem with your installation/configuration, more than a HW problem. Did you measure the HD speed with anything prior to wiping Vista?
     
    mtylerjr, Sep 21, 2007
    #5
  6. bhuether

    bhuether Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I just set to that performance mode in BIOS and HDTach result is almost identical...
     
    bhuether, Sep 21, 2007
    #6
  7. vostro1400user

    vostro1400user Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    202
    Messages:
    1,064
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    just curious why 1520 uses Intel(R) ICH9M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2850 while vostro uses ICH8 controllers, any hardware difference here?
     
    vostro1400user, Sep 21, 2007
    #7
  8. mtylerjr

    mtylerjr Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    95
    Messages:
    790
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    My bad. I fat-fingered the numbers when I typed them in.

    My 1520 says ICH8M
     
    mtylerjr, Sep 21, 2007
    #8
  9. deadsimple

    deadsimple Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    7
    Messages:
    191
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    That sounds like a normal speed for a 5400RPM laptop drive.

    I've got the same controller and same speed drive (Seagate though), and I get about 36MB/s average read in HDTach. The BIOS performance setting makes no difference either. This is on XP.

    You can't expect the same performance (60MB/s+) as a faster desktop drive, SATA or otherwise.
     
    deadsimple, Sep 21, 2007
    #9
  10. frazell

    frazell Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    81
    Messages:
    895
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Also... You see a device listed under "ATA" controllers as DMA Mode 2 because that is your optical drive... They still use IDE since the laptop variations see no benefits from Serial ATA...
     
    frazell, Sep 22, 2007
    #10