Help! Appalling Disc Access Usage

spoonsop · 12-04-2006, 04:16 PM

Hi everyone,

I do simple DV editing on my laptop, it's always been fine. However at the moment, everytime the hard drive is seriously accessed, everything else happening on the computer pauses. This happened to me once before, about a month ago. It gradually got worse and worse until I realised I should try defragementing the drive which fixed the problem right up. (I couldn't even play an mp3 without it breaking up everytime I switched to another program, cauing the disk to access.)

Well, right now I have a DV-project to edit, but I can't even play back my source material DV clips on their own in windows media player or winamp because they literally craw along, several frames at a time. The sound is also broken up like crazy. I ran the CPU monitor and it reports 80% usage whilst attempting to play the video. Not only that, but as I move the mouse around on screen during video playback, it stutters along with the video, and jumps across the screen where the path cannot be shown because the computer is too caught up loading off the disk. (I presume).

Well, I'm clueless what to do now... I ran disk defragmentor all last night for 12 hours hopeing this morning I'd come back to a more sane computer, but no.

specification: AthlonXP 2ghz, 1.25Gb Ram, Ati graphics (forget which 9000?), WinXP home, 12gb free space, PageFile usage: 189Mb

I tried running a racing game a few moment ago to see if there were any stuttering problems with that. The game played just fine (sound and graphics) however during the actual loading of the level, there is some background music normally. This time the background music stuttered badly along as the level loaded.

Should I be looking out for some better defragment tool? Or does my problem lie elsewhere? (XP's fragment tool says my system does not need defragmenting again, although after clicking the analyze button to see a visual of my drive, there are still a few red fragmented parts. It brought up a list of fragmented files too. A few of these were big DV-video files which are over 1gb in size (not used for the project i currently want to edit) and some other smaller files are fragmented too. One file which sounds strange to me is c:\windows\system32\config\system.LOG (file size 1kb, fragments 214) - surely such a small system file as this wouldn't be fragmented? Or at least would be sorted out during the defragement process?

I initially realised this whole computer problem yesterday when I hooked up my DV camcorder and tried to capture some DV video. It captured incredibly jerky dropping frames and audio like mad. So then I tried simple video playback and it was the same.

I don't really want to do a HDD reformat because I just have TOO MANY programs installed with custom settings, plugins etc. And the whole system is completely the way I like it. It's a nightmare to set it all back up the way I want it again each time, especially with drivers etc.

Also, when I run disk defragmenter I do it in safemode, so it's uninterrupted.

Thanks for your time - obviously any help or suggestions you can offer will be very appreciated! There's nothing worse than having a deadline looming for a project and something stupid gets in the way.

**The_Other_One** · 12-04-2006, 04:26 PM

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207

See if this helps at all. Also, have you done any scans, virus or spyware, recently?

Jet · 12-04-2006, 04:30 PM

How soon is the deadline?

As much work as it would be to reformat your computer, it would do wonders.

You might also try downloading Spybot Search & Destroy (free spyware removal program), your problem might have something to do with that.

flash527 · 12-04-2006, 04:30 PM

Whats the rotational speed on your HDD, if you only have 12GB free, you proabaly have an old drive that is small and slow. you may consider a second drive if this is the case with at least 7200RPM.

**Cromewell** · 12-04-2006, 06:05 PM

Sounds like you are using the FAT32 filesystem which takes forever and a day to defrag. Or you could just have an extremely fragmented drive.

Either way, I don't think file fragmentation is your problem. The antivirus/spyware scans are a good place to start. 12GB isn't a lot of free space but it should be more than enough.

spoonsop · 12-04-2006, 09:27 PM

HI Guys,

THanks for your suggestions...

- I will try that deframentation program from majorgeeks

- I still don't want to reformat my computer, its just a huge mountain to have to reinstall, and to backup the whole lot again and then move across, just for this one stupid problem (there has to be a better solution)

- I'll try the spyware program, although my computer slowly down when there is serious disc access, so I doubt if it's related to some malicious program somewhere

- I've had faster 7200rpm drives in the past, on my desktop PC's, but this laptop is just the normal 5400rpm. Crap I know, BUT i've never had a problem with video editing on it before. This is recent, so not worth the internal upgrade at the moment, especially as I'm a student and don't have the funds...

-THe file system of my HDD is NTFS and it's an 80Gb drive... I think it took more accurately about 9-10 hours to complete.

The whole situation is absolutely bloody irritating. Don't you hate it when theres something you have to do, but first you have to jump over a really stupid ironic hurdle? Grrr..

**Cromewell** · 12-04-2006, 11:28 PM

Quote:

-THe file system of my HDD is NTFS and it's an 80Gb drive... I think it took more accurately about 9-10 hours to complete.

Wow. The longest defrag I have ever had on an ntfs drive was 1.5 hours and it was a fairly fragmented 120GB drive.

12-04-2006, 04:16 PM	#1 (permalink)
spoonsop New Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 2	Help! Appalling Disc Access Usage Hi everyone, I do simple DV editing on my laptop, it's always been fine. However at the moment, everytime the hard drive is seriously accessed, everything else happening on the computer pauses. This happened to me once before, about a month ago. It gradually got worse and worse until I realised I should try defragementing the drive which fixed the problem right up. (I couldn't even play an mp3 without it breaking up everytime I switched to another program, cauing the disk to access.) Well, right now I have a DV-project to edit, but I can't even play back my source material DV clips on their own in windows media player or winamp because they literally craw along, several frames at a time. The sound is also broken up like crazy. I ran the CPU monitor and it reports 80% usage whilst attempting to play the video. Not only that, but as I move the mouse around on screen during video playback, it stutters along with the video, and jumps across the screen where the path cannot be shown because the computer is too caught up loading off the disk. (I presume). Well, I'm clueless what to do now... I ran disk defragmentor all last night for 12 hours hopeing this morning I'd come back to a more sane computer, but no. specification: AthlonXP 2ghz, 1.25Gb Ram, Ati graphics (forget which 9000?), WinXP home, 12gb free space, PageFile usage: 189Mb I tried running a racing game a few moment ago to see if there were any stuttering problems with that. The game played just fine (sound and graphics) however during the actual loading of the level, there is some background music normally. This time the background music stuttered badly along as the level loaded. Should I be looking out for some better defragment tool? Or does my problem lie elsewhere? (XP's fragment tool says my system does not need defragmenting again, although after clicking the analyze button to see a visual of my drive, there are still a few red fragmented parts. It brought up a list of fragmented files too. A few of these were big DV-video files which are over 1gb in size (not used for the project i currently want to edit) and some other smaller files are fragmented too. One file which sounds strange to me is c:\windows\system32\config\system.LOG (file size 1kb, fragments 214) - surely such a small system file as this wouldn't be fragmented? Or at least would be sorted out during the defragement process? I initially realised this whole computer problem yesterday when I hooked up my DV camcorder and tried to capture some DV video. It captured incredibly jerky dropping frames and audio like mad. So then I tried simple video playback and it was the same. I don't really want to do a HDD reformat because I just have TOO MANY programs installed with custom settings, plugins etc. And the whole system is completely the way I like it. It's a nightmare to set it all back up the way I want it again each time, especially with drivers etc. Also, when I run disk defragmenter I do it in safemode, so it's uninterrupted. Thanks for your time - obviously any help or suggestions you can offer will be very appreciated! There's nothing worse than having a deadline looming for a project and something stupid gets in the way.

12-04-2006, 04:26 PM	#2 (permalink)
The_Other_One Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Lexington, NC Age: 23 Posts: 12,362	http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207 See if this helps at all. Also, have you done any scans, virus or spyware, recently? __________________ Desktop * Athlon X2 4200 \| 2G RAM \| 160G HD \| 7600GT Laptop1 * C2D T5550 \| 3G RAM \| 120G HD \| Intel x3100 Laptop2 * C2D T5250 \| 2G RAM \| 160G HD \| Intel x3100

12-04-2006, 04:30 PM	#3 (permalink)
Jet Diamond Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 5,285	How soon is the deadline? As much work as it would be to reformat your computer, it would do wonders. You might also try downloading Spybot Search & Destroy (free spyware removal program), your problem might have something to do with that. __________________ Macbook/Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz/2GB DDR2 667/60GB HD/OSX 10.4.11/160GB 3.5" Firewire External/160GB Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini External/

12-04-2006, 04:30 PM	#4 (permalink)
flash527 Bronze Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 62	Whats the rotational speed on your HDD, if you only have 12GB free, you proabaly have an old drive that is small and slow. you may consider a second drive if this is the case with at least 7200RPM. __________________ Laptop = Red Desktop = Blue AMD FX-60 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86 running at 3.0Ghz 2 GB DDR2 2GB Corsair dominator ram nVidia 7900 GTX Nvidia 8800 GTS 17" Widescreen Thermaltake Shark case Thermaltake Big water 745 liquid cooling system WD 150GB Raptor

12-04-2006, 06:05 PM	#5 (permalink)
Cromewell Moderator Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Canada Age: 24 Posts: 10,085	Sounds like you are using the FAT32 filesystem which takes forever and a day to defrag. Or you could just have an extremely fragmented drive. Either way, I don't think file fragmentation is your problem. The antivirus/spyware scans are a good place to start. 12GB isn't a lot of free space but it should be more than enough. __________________ You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here. I must plug a couple comics because they are good :D: www.ctrlaltdel-online.com www.userfriendly.org

12-04-2006, 09:27 PM	#6 (permalink)
spoonsop New Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 2	HI Guys, THanks for your suggestions... - I will try that deframentation program from majorgeeks - I still don't want to reformat my computer, its just a huge mountain to have to reinstall, and to backup the whole lot again and then move across, just for this one stupid problem (there has to be a better solution) - I'll try the spyware program, although my computer slowly down when there is serious disc access, so I doubt if it's related to some malicious program somewhere - I've had faster 7200rpm drives in the past, on my desktop PC's, but this laptop is just the normal 5400rpm. Crap I know, BUT i've never had a problem with video editing on it before. This is recent, so not worth the internal upgrade at the moment, especially as I'm a student and don't have the funds... -THe file system of my HDD is NTFS and it's an 80Gb drive... I think it took more accurately about 9-10 hours to complete. The whole situation is absolutely bloody irritating. Don't you hate it when theres something you have to do, but first you have to jump over a really stupid ironic hurdle? Grrr.. Last edited by spoonsop; 12-04-2006 at 09:35 PM.

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