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1437 Views 7 Replies 3 Participants Last post by boots, Nov 18, 2002

boots

Discussion Starter · Nov 3, 2002

I have two IDE hard drives in the computer.

1) 6.5Gb UDMA (main disk)
2) 1.2Gb (for file storage)

I also have a 40x CD Rom drive and a 40x12x48 CD Rewriter

I can supply the makes and types if they are relavent.

I know disk speeds can be limited by the way things are hooked up and what is designated to be primary and secondary, so what would be the best way to connect everything together in my case?

I was thinking about removing the CD Rom and just using the rewriter for everything. Would that make any difference to speeds since things could then be connected differently?

Thanks

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· #2 · Nov 3, 2002

How old is this machine your running?

Those two hard drives will slow things down.

But whether a new drive will speed things up or not depends on the age of your system...........................:winkgrin:

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boots

Discussion Starter · #3 · Nov 3, 2002 (Edited)

It's about 6 years old. Not any particular make as it was made up for me.

The motherboard is an MS-6163 (the bios has been updated a few times).

It's got a Pentium3 450Mhz processor.
256Mb RAM
The rewiter is a new liteon on one (very good too at £50-00 or $80-00 incidentally).

I did one of those online speed checks a while ago, which told me my disk was running slow. I did wonder if it was because I have things connected together wrongly.

Without taking the computer apart I can't be sure how things are presently joined up. I know the main disk is set as the primary and think the CD Rom is on the same lead as the secondary.

The rewriter and the 1.2Gb drive go into the second motherboard slot with the rewriter set as primary.

Could that be done any better?

*EDIT* Sorry, it's 4 years old.

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mcgeeb1215

· #4 · Nov 3, 2002

In my opinion, keep the CD-ROM drive for reading CD-ROMS. That way your CD-RW may last longer.
I always thought that it was "Correct" to have the hard drives both on the primary controller and the CD drives on the secondary controller. I could be wrong though. I don't know why the way you have it would slow your computer down either.
One possible way to improve performance would be to change your virtual memory settings to 2 to 3 times the amount of RAM you have. Instead of setting it to "Let Windows Manage Virtual Memory" choose manuel or whatever it is and set the maximum and minimum to the same number "2 to 3 times the amount of ram you have." Disk Defrag weekly will help too.
Like Speedo said though, those hard drives are old. It will run slower compared to newer computers.

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· #5 · Nov 3, 2002

I agree with mcgeeb1215 as this is how I set mine up.

But you may hear other options here also..............

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boots

Discussion Starter · #6 · Nov 3, 2002

I do have the virtual memory set up this way. I set it at 512Mb.

I suppose it's really upgrade time ...well maybe next year!

If I hadn't been told my disk is running slowly I'd have been happy in my ingorance anyway and not tried to think of any reason why it might be so.

I'll try and pretend I never went to that site (pcpitstop I think it was) that gave me the bad news. It'll save me a bundle of money if I can do that.

Thanks to all.

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johnwill

· #7 · Nov 4, 2002

FWIW, I've never seen any reason to have two CD's in a machine, so I have CD-RW drives in most of mine. Places like ComputerGate have CD-RW drives for $30, so saving the CD wear-n-tear seems to be a somewhat moot point.

As far as your disk running slowly, would this be a Win98 system by any chance? If so, you may have a BIOS or setup compatibility that has the drives running in "MS-DOS compatibility mode", which will really slow things down! If that is the case, you can probably fix it and get a significant performance increase.

Right click on My Computer, select Properties, and then the Performance tab. See if there are any warnings displayed about the system. If there's a line that says: "Your system is configured for optimal performance", then you don't have this problem.

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boots

Discussion Starter · #8 · Nov 18, 2002

Everything is set up optimally but I just thought I'd let everyone know that I did get some improvement by turning off the realtime anti-virus monitoring.

A sort of benchmark I've used is how fast all the icons display in my graphics directories. They seem to appear much quicker with the AV monitoring disabled.

I have taken to leaving it off and scanning regularly. Providing I don't click on anything unknown I should be OK. I always scan e-mail attachments from known sources before I open them and others just get ditched anyway.

I guess I'll just settle for that until new system time.

Grateful for the help.

Boots.

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