quick hdd question.......

[OOBradm]

My HDD is almost 4 years old, and I think it causing my games to run slower than what they should. THis is what happens: the game will start, and it will be very very choppy for the first 10-15 seconds. then it steady's out and it runs perfect. When I enter a new area of the level or turn a bend it goes choppy again for another 10-15 seconds. Think its my HDD?



Here are my system specs:

AMD xp1600+
128 mb DDR (getting another 256 soon)
Geforce 2 mx400
brand new mobo(forget the brand, sadly)

my HDD is really the only thing that I havent upgraded in the last year. any ideas?

 

[Paulson]

What kind of hard drive is it? And you have a 4 year old one in a brand new computer? (from the looks of the rest of your specs...)

Time for an upgrade!

 

[OOBradm]

yeah, thats what I was thinking. I dont recall what brand the hdd is, and I dont know how to check. heres another question- can I run 2 hdd's at the same time? I was thinking I could keep windows and all of my nessesary files on this hdd, and put my games on my new one. is that possible?

 

[Yossarian]

But of course! Just hook it up to an unused IDE connector

 

[OOBradm]

alright, thanks you guys are a huge help. one last question.

would I have to install windows onto both hdd's? or would the PC just find the one w/ windows installed?

 

[astroview]

Buy a new Hard Drive, a fast one like the IBM GXP120 or the Western Digital WD1200JB (it is faster) and install your OS and programs onto the faster drive. Use the slower driver for storage, no it doesn't need an OS installed on it, only one HD does.

 

[OOBradm]

would 7200 rpm's be fast enough to handle new games? (such as medal of honor:allied assault)?

 

[kmike75]

NewEgg has some real good deals on 7200 rpm drives. I'd buy a 7200 and make sure that you enable DMA... To answer your question, yes, 7200 is the way to go.

 

[Paulson]

7200 is pretty much what everyone has right now, it's the standard... other than going scsi (which I don't think you want to do) 7200RPM is the fastest you can get...

You could also just get hard drive ghosting software to take the install you have on that old hard drive now to put it on the new one when you get it...

 

[OOBradm]

alright, thanks again.

 

[Paulson]

if you got any more questions ask away

 

[DN]

Did you ever check your hard drive light (assuming it's hooked up) to see if there was activity when you are getting this initial choppyness? I'd also wait to see what occurs AFTER you install that extra 256Mb of RAM before jumping the gun, unless you just planned to get a new HD anyways..

 

[OOBradm]

i found out the name of the hdd----- its a maxtor 92040u6. It spins at 5400 rpm's. Is that slow enough to cause a considerable amount of slowdown for the first few seconds like that.

and in responce to DN.... yes, the light does go one and it does flicker, a lot. It loads like crazy the first few seconds.

 

[Paulson]

Do you have DMA enabled?

 

[Antisocial Virge]

I agree with DN totally. I had the same thing happen back in the days when 32 meg of ram was enough. The game was choppy for a while till everything got loaded into memory. Going to 64 megs cured it totally.

 

[OOBradm]

I have never even heard of DMA. therefore, I have not clue if its enabled.

how do I check if its enabled? and it isnt, how do I enable it?


and......right now I have 75$ and some stuff to trade. I can get either some more RAM, or a new hdd.....Im not sure which one.....

 

[Paulson]

What operating system do you have?

Then I'll help you

 

[OOBradm]

right now I am running 98SE. I bought ME, but I didnt like it so I went back to 98SE.

 

[Paulson]

If you go into my computer, right click on the drive, then go to properties, somewhere in there is an option to turn on DMA...

I haven't used windows 98 in a while, but I know it's in there... it shouldn't be too hard to find... check to see if "DMA"'s box is checked...

 

[ScottyB]

Open up the drive and blow the dust out. just kidding

 

[RemyCanad]

Well I would get the ram first. Your hard drive may be cuasing the chopyness just becuase you dont have enough ram.

For example. You are playing umm supercom fighting champion ship. Your are walking down a street in the game and you turn a corner. Well as of now your computer does not have enough ram to old the new texures and such in memeory and has to resort to the hd for memory.

Now you have more memory lets go back to the example
Your are walking down that street again but now you computer can hold all that info on the new street you are about to enter in ram. Sence ram is much faster than your hd, ( even new ones) you dont notice the slowdown.

 

[OOBradm]

well, I couldnt find it. but, it doesnt matter anyway, I think Im going to buy a maxtor 20gb 7200. Im going to keep this hdd too for some storage space. the ram will come later, but hopefully this will fix the majority of my gaming problems. Thanks for all of your help!

 

[visceral]

128mb's definately isn't enough for todays games.
512mb is what you need to eliminate swapfiling from all but the most resource hungry games.

 

[OOBradm]

another question......

I only have 2 dimm slots. I have 128ddr in one right now, should I get a 256 or 128 stick of ram? would a 128 cut it?

 

[visceral]

The more the merrier!
tho you must endeavour to keep to the same manufacturer of ram if you can.
even better is replacing it with one single 512mb dimm to ensure top stability