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.

    Anyone seen a harddrive do this before?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by gerryf19, Jun 17, 2009.

  1. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

    Reputations:
    2,275
    Messages:
    3,990
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    OK, here's a nasty looking HDTune screen cap

    Got this one machine in an office that acts oddly at times so I was running it through its paces today with HDTune.

    [​IMG]

    There is nothing else running on this computer other than some specialized scanner software. The drive checks out with the WD data lifeguard tools, there are no errors according to SMART. The thing just stops dead for no reason every couple minutes.

    Wierd, huh?

    The funniest thing is the office belongs to a doctor, who was looking over my shoulder and sees this and says something like, "If that were an EKG, the patient is dying."
     
    gerryf19, Jun 17, 2009
    #1
  2. makaveli72

    makaveli72 Eat.My.Shorts

    Reputations:
    1,235
    Messages:
    2,108
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Yep...that patient looks like it's definitely dying. And the CPU usage is low to boot. :confused:

    How about trying another HDD benchmark program?
     
    makaveli72, Jun 17, 2009
    #2
  3. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

    Reputations:
    2,275
    Messages:
    3,990
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Normally, lower CPU usage is good, but that is freaky low--and look at that Burst Rate for an old 80gb drive with only 2mb cache. The whole drive doesn't make sense.
     
    gerryf19, Jun 17, 2009
    #3
  4. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,038
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Looks normal to me if you have some app running in the background using the hdd resource.
     
    jackluo923, Jun 18, 2009
    #4
  5. RainMotorsports

    RainMotorsports Formerly ClutchX2

    Reputations:
    565
    Messages:
    2,382
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    56
    See thats what I would expect and i dont think the cpu usage is all that low its half of anythign I have run into but that means nothing.

    Yeah that burst rate is crazy. Read cache wouldnt ever affect that would it?
     
    RainMotorsports, Jun 18, 2009
    #5
  6. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    3,905
    Messages:
    6,116
    Likes Received:
    89
    Trophy Points:
    216
    Does the chart always go down at the same place? If so, it could be hardware.
     
    namaiki, Jun 18, 2009
    #6
  7. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,038
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Read cache will definetly affect the burst speed for sure, especially with low capcity drives with standard cache size. Burst speed seems normal to me. On my desktop computer, burst speed is like 180MB-200MB/s.
     
    jackluo923, Jun 18, 2009
    #7
  8. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

    Reputations:
    2,275
    Messages:
    3,990
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    I've seen programs create significang jags, but never a virtual flatline--and remember, there is nothing loading on this machine, but a piece of scanner software that wasn't running.

    The computer is a basically a think-client/dumb terminal that connects to a server for TS sessions. The only reason it has to be a PC at all is due to the proprietary scanner software.
     
    gerryf19, Jun 18, 2009
    #8
  9. Shyster1

    Shyster1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    6,926
    Messages:
    8,178
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    There aren't errors in the SMART diagnostic, but what sort of statistics come out of the SMART data? Anything look suspicious even if the diagnostic utility still thinks it's nominal?
     
    Shyster1, Jun 18, 2009
    #9