First time testing my Hitachi 7k500 with HD Tune. Are these normal results?

Transfer Rate:

Minimum: 0.0 MB/sec
Maximm: 107.6 MB/sec
Average" 52.4 MB/sec

Access Time:
17.9 ms

Burst Rate:
102.9 MB/sec

CPU Usage:
-1.0%

First time using this program and I do not even know what these numbers mean. I just want to make sure this is normal numbers for a Hitachi 500gb 7200rpm 7k500 hardrive?

 

No, not normal - the Minimum should be anything higher than 0.0 MB/sec.

Maybe try this in Safe Mode?

The Maximum is in the ball park, but you either have a lot of processes runnning while you ran that benchmark, have incompatible drivers installed or the drive is essentially defective.

Try to run HD Tune in Safe Mode and see if you get a more normal result.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...chi-hts725050a9a364-aka-7k500-benchmarks.html

 

tilleroftheearth:

I re-ran the test in safe mode and here are the results

Transfer Rate:
Minimum: 13.9 MB/sec
Maximum: 108.6 MB/sec
Average: 79.0 MB/sec

Access Time:
17.4 ms

Burst Rate:
142.2 MB/sec

CPU Usage:
-1.0%

Is that more in the normal range for this specific hard drive?

 

Yes, those numbers are more normal. Here are mine from last year. Same HDD:

 

Yeah, more normal, even though the minimum is still around 3x lower than what I would be expecting. Everything else looks good though so that minimum should be just a very sharp spike downwards on your HD Tune graph.

How many processes are you running in Task Manager?

Also, how long are you letting Windows idle before you run this test (after boot up)?

Do you have anything going on in the background while running HD Tune?

What O/S, drivers and chipset do you have and how much RAM is installed in your system.

Sorry, too many questions - but there is something affecting your HDD even in Safe Mode.

Start by letting us know which version of Windows you're running. How much RAM you have. The type and driver version for the AHCI SATA controller on your system and finally, how many processes are running after booting up the system and leaving it 'idle' for at least 10 minutes.

Screen shots of any and all the above would be optimum. Thanks!

 

I truly appreciate the thoroughness to try to solve my issue.

-I am running Windows 7 64bit SP1, 4gb of ram with an Intel I5-450m

-When I go to Control, alt, delete, and select start task manager and click on processes...Its showing at first 90 when I started the computer, a few minutes later it is now showing 88 with Physicial Memory being 43%....Now it is showing Processes: 84 with physical memory of 44%. This is around five minutes since I started typing this

-I am attaching a picture of what is running in my windows task manager.

-The two things I could not capture in the picture was "Avp.exe*32" which is Kaspersky and csrss.exe (which I am not sure what it is).

-"The type and driver version for the AHCI SATA controller on your system" How do I find the answer to that so I can provide that to you?

You asked, how long did I let the computer idle before I ran the HD Tune test in safe mode? I actually did not let it idle at all. Once the computer came on, I ran the test.

Any more questions, comments or other pictures you need me to take to help me solve this problem would be very much appreciated.

Thank you so much again.

 

You need to let Windows settle 3-5 minutes or so before running any kind of performance test, especially on a platter based drive. While the test is running, you don't want Windows to be paging or another application to be loading... that will significantly cut in on your test numbers.

 

Ok, I started windows in regular mode (not safe mode) and I let the computer idle for like 20 minutes and then I did the HD Tune Test again. I am attaching a screen shot of my HD Tune Test results.

Thoughts?

 

That is definitely much better - but I just noticed - you're running v2.55 of HD Tune - try a newer version.

 

Still too many background processes. Try a clean install

 

Some laptops include HDD protection settings against shock hazards. Usually there's like a low (performance mode) setting, a mid (default mode) and a high (protection mode) or you can just disable the whole thingy which would set you HDD to performance mode but your not protected against shock hazard at all. Meaning if you accidentally drop the laptop the HDD eats it.

 

Nice to see you post Phil. You were the one back when I purchased this laptop and was looking to upgrade to a fast hardrive to look into the Hitachi 7k500.

I do not want to do a "clean install" but, could you assist me in how I can clean up my machine as it seems sluggish. I was going to purchase 8gb of Samsung ram to max the ram to speed it up. But, when I first purchased the machine it only came with 4gb of ram and it was quite fast. So, something is slowing it down. When I bought the machine the first thing I did was take out all the crapware. So, that should mostly be gone. Any assistance on speeding up my machine I would really appreciate it.

 

There's nothing like a fresh install of Windows 7 in my opinion. Make the first partition 100GB for extra speed.

For the people that still don't want to do that they could manually remove all unnecessary software and disable all unnecessary processes in msconfig.

Also replacing AV like McAfee or Norton with MSE makes a difference.

 

I already disabled all the unnecessary processes in msconfig. But, how do I know what is unnecessary software and also safe to manually remove?

Is there a screen shot I can take and post on here? If so, where should I go on the laptop to take such a picture shot that shows the softwares.

Also, my antivirus is Kaspersky and I have the Malwarebytes live.

I also utilize CCleaner to try to keep things as clean as possible and I use Perfectdisk11 to defrag to keep things as organized as possible.

 

Get rid of Kaspersky and Malwarebytes and install MSE and simply using common sense when navigating the web.

'Free' 20-30% faster system.

 

If I replace the stock 4gb of ram and replace it with 8gb of ram. Will that compensate for the sluggishness that Kaspersky and Malwarebytes causes?

 

Not in my experience.

For reference: I was 'fooling around' with an HP notebook a few weeks ago and could not believe that a platform such as this was so unresponsive. i7 2630QM, 8GB RAM, dual HDD and Win7x64. What was going on?

Only after I shrunk the C: drive partition to less than 100GB and removed Norton A/V did the system behave anywhere near 'normal'. The 5400 RPM drives were definitely holding it back though: going to an almost identical system except for 7200 RPM HDD's, the HP still seemed like it was a platform from 2009 instead of 2011.

The 105 processes running did not help the HP notebook (the 7200 RPM based system was 'only' running ~80 processes.

RAM will help, but not when the two A/V 'solutions' you are running are bringing the system to 2005 performance levels.

 

Yeah, but what about viruses? I did not read the best reviews for MSE while Kaspersky and Malwarebytes is highly rated. Thoughts?

 

Is Kaspersky really that slow? I've never heard that but then again I don't know much about Kaspersky.

 

Yeah, already covered that.

 

Kaspersky to my recollection uses a lot of system resources.
Although some reported that allegedly that was resolved.
They also said the same thing about AVG, but that didn't prevent the computer from behaving sluggishly while it was on it.

MSE as a free antivirus is actually comparable to paid programs and has the lowest score in terms of false positives.
Similarly comparable free AV's include: Avast, Avira and Panda (but make sure to have only 1 installed).

Always make sure to run just 1 AV with active protection in the background - paid ones are simply NOT necessary (they are a waste of money in my opinion).

As for Malwarebytes... I wouldn't spend money on the full version.
It's a good program, but I keep the free version for on-demand scanning only (to be used only in situations where you 'suspect' of an infection that the AV might have missed - 90% of the time though you won't need to use it).

The number of processes you have running is NOT really a sign of an optimized system.
If I was in your position, I would first remove any and ALL startup services that aren't necessary.
Leave only the one for the AV.

The next step is to remove ALL of software that you don't use and that might have came pre-installed.
What people seemingly forget is that numerous programs tend to install extra services into the system which usually won't remove themselves unless the programs that use them are removed from the OS itself.

I would recommend you do a clean Win7 SP1 install.
Followed up with install of the basic programs (one of the aforementioned free AV's, Ccleaner, Office or LibraOffice - whichever you use, Photoshop if you use it, burning software - if you use it, and anything else you might need).

Do NOT allow programs to startup with windows.
Google Update is recommended to be left alone along with Java (to allow for automatic updates - unless you want to do it yourself), the touchpad and the AV... anything else is expendable.

 

PM sent was just sent to you

 

105 running processes...


Do the clean install man, you'll thank yourself for it in the end. Just uninstalling the crapware you don't want still doesn't give you the same result. Also go here and figure out what you want/don't want to keep activated.
Black Viper’s Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Service Configurations | Black Viper's Website | www.blackviper.com

Then either make a list of these things or an image of your drive so you don't have to go through it all over again if you ever need to renistall. It's not difficult to get a Windows 7 install down to 50-60 processes. There's lots of other great info in this thread such as saving the coin and going with a free AV