Curse

moriz · May 24, 2009, 05:23 AM // 05:23

ever since my RMA'd seagate barracuda failed again, i've been using a 640gb caviar green as my primary drive. what i've noticed are these strange "stuttering" issues that crops up in my games. the game would be running steadily, and then for no apparent reason, start to stutter like mad.

i've done some monitoring on this issue. here's what i've found:
-when my games stutter, hard drive indicator are always lit
-my GPU utilization drops to 0% during the stuttering

by the looks of it, it's almost like my hard drive cannot keep up, and the rest of my system has to wait for it to provide the texture loads. there's also the possibility that my southbridge is overheating, but i'm not completely sure on this one.

so, is it my hard drive? or is it something else entirely?

relevant specs:
core 2 duo E7200 @ 3.2ghz
asus p5k-vm motherboard (G33 chipset)
WD caviar green 640gb

Tarun · May 24, 2009, 05:29 AM // 05:29

Check the SMART using HDTune.

Elder III · May 24, 2009, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Got a spare hard drive you could try running some games off of? Simple, and sure-fire way to find out if the hdd is the culprit.

DarkCloud Of God · May 24, 2009, 05:03 PM // 17:03

I would scan your hard drive with seatools see if it finds any problems http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/sup...loads/seatools

Even though you are using a western digital HD now it should still scan it and let you know if something is wrong with your HD.

Quaker · May 24, 2009, 05:50 PM // 17:50

This could be many things. Bad drivers, bad mobo, bad power supply, bad cables, etc. It's a bit suspicious that you RMA'd two hard drives and now have problems with yet another. If I was repairing your computer, I would put the HD into my test rig to see if it's ok, and then check things like the power supply voltages and perhaps try a better (quality/power) power supply to eliminate voltage spikes.
But that could be just for starters.

(It could also be that your power supply is too small to handle the load)

rick1027 · May 24, 2009, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quaker

This could be many things. Bad drivers, bad mobo, bad power supply, bad cables, etc. It's a bit suspicious that you RMA'd two hard drives and now have problems with yet another. If I was repairing your computer, I would put the HD into my test rig to see if it's ok, and then check things like the power supply voltages and perhaps try a better (quality/power) power supply to eliminate voltage spikes.
But that could be just for starters.

(It could also be that your power supply is too small to handle the load)

thats exactly what id do thinking maybe it wasnt the hard drives at all

Lord Sojar · May 24, 2009, 07:35 PM // 19:35

Hard to say really moriz, but there are a few possibilities. If your GPU utilization is dropping to zero, that means it isn't receiving texture files to process. This leads me to believe it is more likely your motherboard's SATA/EIDE controller. While it could be the HDD, you would normally hear a sound if it was a hardware issue (platter vibration, spindle grind, etc)

I would run HDD stress tests and see if that is the problem or not.

moriz · May 24, 2009, 11:43 PM // 23:43

the caviar green is a ridiculously quiet drive, so i won't be able to hear actual harddisk thrashing even if i tried. however, the drive indicator light was lit every time this happened, which means that the disk was spinning/being accessed when this was happening.

i'm also leaning towards something to do with the southbridge also. HDTune indicated that my disk is fine (no errors, not even warnings).

i don't think it's my PSU. it's been fine for a year now, and it's not stressed anywhere near its maximum load the entire time. the first hard drive was one of those self-bricking seagate barracudas (failed after 9 months). the second drive was the one i received back from seagate, which began to fail after one month.

Tarun · May 25, 2009, 04:33 AM // 04:33

Considering how it's happened with more than one drive, I'd first try another cable. If that doesn't solve it it might be the motherboard. Especially from how fast the drive's have been dying.

moriz · May 25, 2009, 11:13 AM // 11:13

just done the benchmark, here are the results:

doesn't look too fast to me. don't know if this is typical or not though.

moriz · May 30, 2009, 11:44 PM // 23:44

an update on my situation:

got my barracuda back from RMA. it's noticeably louder; in fact, it's prone to emit a ton of noise at times (maybe i need to secure it better, who knows). however, that stuttering problem is now completely gone, after i've reinstalled everything on it. here's hoping it actually lasts.

Tarun · May 31, 2009, 01:24 AM // 01:24

Seagate can't use AAM due to a lawsuit which is why it's so much louder. Western Digital drives are awesome though.

moriz · May 31, 2009, 03:19 AM // 03:19

this isn't just ordinary "loud" though. it can be a faint high pitched whine, a rapid clicking, or relative silence.

why can't seagate make a harddrive that doesn't suck... grrr. looks like i'll make a backup system image in case this one dies also.

Tarun · May 31, 2009, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

this isn't just ordinary "loud" though. it can be a faint high pitched whine

Yeah, I had this happen with two drives I got from them. Google it and you'll see how common it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

why can't seagate make a harddrive that doesn't suck... grrr. looks like i'll make a backup system image in case this one dies also.

I gave up on them after the above issue.

Elder III · May 31, 2009, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Well, I might as well add my 2 cents - I put 5-6 PCs together over the past winter (friends and family). I used a Seagate HDD for one of the computers. WD or Hitachi for the others. Guess which one is the noisiest? The Seagate is the only one of them that is audible above the rest of the system (with ear next to case). I've been a WD fan since I started being interested in computers, and thus far nothing has happened to change my mind either. Anyways, glad it's workiing better now, and good luck with your hard drives Moriz.