[nevertouchme]

Originally Posted by majorpayne

My new laptop's specs:

Intel Core i7 2617M 1.5GHz(2.6GHz w/Turbo Boost, 4MB Cache)
6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
500 GB SATA hard drive (7200RPM)
Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT540M (1 GB each)
11.6" High Def (720p/1366x768) with WLED backlight
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OS
Killer Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO
Soundblaster X-Fi Hi Def Audio
Internal Bluetooth 3.0

wow, sounds great for a screen < 12" lappy. Wat's the brand? did you upgrade or bought it off the shelf with the same config?

[ArunV]

Originally Posted by creative420

This is the address of their exclusive store:

Dell Store, Divyasree Greens, Dell Campus, Near To Embassy Golf Links & Next To Bpcl Petrol Pump, Koramangala Intermediate Ring Road, Domlur, Bangalore - 560071

Call: Mr Asfaq +(91)-(80)-41266203, 25068026, 25108980, 25108967
+(91)-9844440800
18004254026,18004258115


And yeah, you can buy them online too from trusted sites like Flipkart or Letsbuy or even dell.co.in


But if you do know someone working in Dell, awesome! I've heard Dell employees get awesome discounts.

Better go to the dell store near EGL. I got 36 months McAfee Antivirus(Rs @2500/-) and laptop bag upgrade(Rs 660/-) when i opted for 3 years full cover warranty. None of the other shops on online store were giving this offer.

[bluevolt]

My HP dx2480 PC has the habit of changing OS every fifteen days. After some 15-20 days the hard disk activity indicator stays on and slows down system heavily. No system restore etc is of any help and ultimately I have to re-install the windows. My friend told me that there could be a issue with HDD. All three OS tried including XP, Vista and 7.

Guys please help.

[majorpayne]

Originally Posted by nevertouchme

wow, sounds great for a screen < 12" lappy. Wat's the brand? did you upgrade or bought it off the shelf with the same config?

Pretty much off the shelf. Its an alienware M11x. You can customize it to an extent when you order it online... I was looking for a powerful yet compact laptop. This was the best I could find that fit my budget!

[JustCause]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

My HP dx2480 PC has the habit of changing OS every fifteen days. After some 15-20 days the hard disk activity indicator stays on and slows down system heavily. No system restore etc is of any help and ultimately I have to re-install the windows. My friend told me that there could be a issue with HDD. All three OS tried including XP, Vista and 7.

Guys please help.

Back up everything if you've not already done so.

Install a diagnostic program such as HD Tune or Windlg. Do a S.M.A.R.T scan of your HDD. It will report any out-of-spec operation value/malfunction. If you hear a faint clicking sound when the light stays on,then the heads are making contact with the platter. The HDD is on its last legs.

Another parameter is formation of bad sectors. Quite simply, the magnetic domains on the platter become unstable in due course of use & the OS (filesystem) doesn't know what to do when it suddenly detects invalid data. It keeps on retrying on that block to recover the data, slowing the system down & resulting in heavy read loads.

Also, how old is your PC??

[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by JustCause

Back up everything if you've not already done so.

Install a diagnostic program such as HD Tune or Windlg. Do a S.M.A.R.T scan of your HDD. It will report any out-of-spec operation value/malfunction. If you hear a faint clicking sound when the light stays on,then the heads are making contact with the platter. The HDD is on its last legs.

Another parameter is formation of bad sectors. Quite simply, the magnetic domains on the platter become unstable in due course of use & the OS (filesystem) doesn't know what to do when it suddenly detects invalid data. It keeps on retrying on that block to recover the data, slowing the system down & resulting in heavy read loads.

Also, how old is your PC??

Thanks I will try this ASAP.

And I forgot to mention that my PC is two year old and have this problem right from day one. It's just that I am living with this problem.

[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by JustCause

Back up everything if you've not already done so.

Install a diagnostic program such as HD Tune or Windlg. Do a S.M.A.R.T scan of your HDD. It will report any out-of-spec operation value/malfunction. If you hear a faint clicking sound when the light stays on,then the heads are making contact with the platter. The HDD is on its last legs.

It seems everything is OK as per test by HD Tune.


On a side note - the same OS and softwares used on this computer are installed on other HP laptop and it is running fine since 1 year of installation.

[JustCause]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

It seems everything is OK as per test by HD Tune.
Attachment 881103

On a side note - the same OS and softwares used on this computer are installed on other HP laptop and it is running fine since 1 year of installation.

That leaves bad blocks out of the equation

What is reported under the health tab?

Also in the benchmark tab, do a read benchmark & see if you get any drops in read rate.

If all is well in those parameters, it is pointing towards a Driver problem (incompatibility). If it was a hardware error, you would've immediately got a blue screen & hard disk led would've gone off.

Do check the Eventlog--->windows logs---->application & system logs & look out for red cross mark. It would most probably indicate the conflict.

As a failsafe, disable Indexing service(windows search) & disable the Page file to reduce the excessive read/write loads on the HDD.See if that stops the slowdown.

During the slowdown, does the mouse pointer leave trails/ become jerky?

Also, are there any Unknown/(!) marked devices in Device manager?


Hate to confuse you, but since you have had this problem from day one, it could be due to a wrong setting in BIOS. Check if HDD is configured as SATA & write protection is disabled. Also, the access mode must be default & not any other mode.

EDIT:
Saw that you have the 320GB Seagate ST3320418AS. I had one of the same series plagued with the same slowdown problem ( I didn't have the OS on it but, the file access time was large). I gave it for warranty support. They upgraded the firmware & returned it to me. No problems since then. But, I went in for a Western Digital shortly after.

[bluevolt]

Thanks for the detailed help

Originally Posted by JustCause

That leaves bad blocks out of the equation

What is reported under the health tab?

Also in the benchmark tab, do a read benchmark & see if you get any drops in read rate.

Here are reports

Originally Posted by JustCause

Do check the Eventlog--->windows logs---->application & system logs & look out for red cross mark. It would most probably indicate the conflict.

There are couple of errors which states that windows search service failed to start in timely manner. But nothing serious as such.

Originally Posted by JustCause

As a failsafe, disable Indexing service(windows search) & disable the Page file to reduce the excessive read/write loads on the HDD.See if that stops the slowdown.

I already tried this but no use. I even disabled system restore.

Originally Posted by JustCause

During the slowdown, does the mouse pointer leave trails/ become jerky?

It hangs up and becomes jerky but no trails as such.

Originally Posted by JustCause

Also, are there any Unknown/(!) marked devices in Device manager?

No unknown devices, everything is normal.

Originally Posted by JustCause

Hate to confuse you, but since you have had this problem from day one, it could be due to a wrong setting in BIOS. Check if HDD is configured as SATA & write protection is disabled. Also, the access mode must be default & not any other mode.

will check this also upon restarting the PC.

Originally Posted by JustCause

EDIT:
Saw that you have the 320GB Seagate ST3320418AS. I had one of the same series plagued with the same slowdown problem ( I didn't have the OS on it but, the file access time was large). I gave it for warranty support. They upgraded the firmware & returned it to me. No problems since then. But, I upgraded to Western Digital shortly after.

Yup it is the same model. My computer is still under warranty, should I call HP? Or I can do the firmware update myself from their website?

[JustCause]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Yup it is the same model. My computer is still under warranty, should I call HP? Or I can do the firmware update myself from their website?

There are no steep falls in the transfer rate & it is consistent with real world application.

Firmware update

Some HDDs lose all their data after firmware update. You may need to back up everything before trying the update. You might be asked to do the update via booting in DOS. There is a utility to allow firmware update from within windows but I'm not sure whether it'll allow it on a OS disk.

The spin retry error is a sign of wear & tear on the head/motor mechanism.

The B8 unknown attribute as listed by Wikipedia

"This attribute is a part of HP's SMART IV technology, as well as part of other vendors' IO Error Detection and Correction schemas, and it contains a count of parity errors which occur in the data path to the media via the drive's cache RAM".

Both are serious enough issues to warrant a replacement under warranty. Call HP & tell them about the SMART errors. My HDD didn't have SMART errors, it was just intermittently slow to a crawl.

[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by JustCause

There are no steep falls in the transfer rate & it is consistent with real world application.

Firmware update

Some HDDs lose all their data after firmware update. You may need to back up everything before trying the update. You might be asked to do the update via booting in DOS. There is a utility to allow firmware update from within windows but I'm not sure whether it'll allow it on a OS disk.

The spin retry error is a sign of wear & tear on the head/motor mechanism.

The B8 unknown attribute as listed by Wikipedia

"This attribute is a part of HP's SMART IV technology, as well as part of other vendors' IO Error Detection and Correction schemas, and it contains a count of parity errors which occur in the data path to the media via the drive's cache RAM".

Both are serious enough issues to warrant a replacement under warranty. Call HP & tell them about the SMART errors. My HDD didn't have SMART errors, it was just intermittently slow to a crawl.

I have logged warranty replacement request to HP. There was no problem as per HP integrated system diagnostic on pressing F7 but I insisted them to replace the disk On the basis of above two errors. While the person on phone agreed on replacement and has told that new HDD will be sent by Tuesday but the person who will come to my place will rely on F7 test rather than third party software test so I have to pressurize him to replace the disk otherwise he may just mark things as OK and will move on. Let me see if he replaces the disk or not.

BTW is there any other software also which can detect these errors. I want to cross proof and print reports so that I can show him.

[_raVan_]

Originally Posted by majorpayne

Intel Core i7 2617M 1.5GHz(2.6GHz w/Turbo Boost, 4MB Cache)
6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT540M (1 GB each)

Originally Posted by majorpayne

Pretty much off the shelf. Its an alienware M11x. You can customize it to an extent when you order it online... I was looking for a powerful yet compact laptop. This was the best I could find that fit my budget!

Woah!!! Thats a pretty good machine. Do post snaps and a short review of the laptop. You got it in India? Whats the cost you paid? Also, how was the experience with their customer care (if any) ?

[majorpayne]

Originally Posted by _raVan_

Woah!!! Thats a pretty good machine. Do post snaps and a short review of the laptop. You got it in India? Whats the cost you paid? Also, how was the experience with their customer care (if any) ?

No I didn't buy the laptop in India. It cost me cad$ 1300. The customer experience was decent I guess. I customized it online. I received the laptop on time. And they gave me a free alienware tact x gaming mouse with it. So overall, I was quite happy.

I will try and take a few pics of it and write a review when I can...

[JustCause]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

BTW is there any other software also which can detect these errors. I want to cross proof and print reports so that I can show him.

You can use Seagate's own Seatools. You need to show him the HP-Specific error though.

The F7 tool is very basic & considering that it does not include performance data, it is highly unreliable in predicting your PC's state. You can get detailed reports in Speedfan (link) software (there is an online statistical analysis option too).

Don't accept any blah-blah & insist on replacement. The presence of additional report(s) will only increase your chances of getting a new one at one go.

[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by JustCause

You can use Seagate's own Seatools. You need to show him the HP-Specific error though.

The F7 tool is very basic & considering that it does not include performance data, it is highly unreliable in predicting your PC's state. You can get detailed reports in Speedfan (link) software (there is an online statistical analysis option too).

Don't accept any blah-blah & insist on replacement. The presence of additional report(s) will only increase your chances of getting a new one at one go.

Thanks JC,

Today the technician replaced the hard disk with similar capacity 320 GB Western digital hard disk (earlier it was seagate). He came and simply replaced the disk, no questions were asked.

I was living with this problem for past two years (Warranty is expiring in october) and finally with your help got it replaced.

Thanks!