Inspiron 5100 Slow Hard Drive?

Question

Hi,

I am having problems with my new Dell Laptop (Inspiron 5100, 2.4Ghz, 512mb, 32mb Vid etc). This was brought to my attention by the fact DVDs skip or refuse to play and video game performance is extremely poor.

The problems with the hard drive seem to stem from it running extremely slowly. It's a 40Gb IC25N040ATCS04-0.

I have run Performance Test on it which gave results of -

Sequential Read 10.4mb/s
Sequential Write 6.4mb/s
Random Seek 1.3mb.s
Disk mark 47.7

This ranks slightly below a benchmark 400Mhz PC, quite surprising considering the laptop concerned is 2.4Ghz.

I have also ran the AIDA32 tool mentioned on the board, this gave the information pasted at the end of this post.

The driver versions are

IC25N040ATCS04-0 v5.1.2535
IDE Intel(R) 82801DB Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 24CB v4.0.1001.0

The disk has over 20Gb of space, has been recently defragemented and came brand new with the laptop.

Is there something in XP slowing the drive down (DMA access is set to on) or is this a faulty hard drive?

Can anyone help? I feel like I have paid a lot £££s for a laptop that is performing like a 400mhz machine!

Cheers,

Graeme

_paste_

--------[ ATA ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ IC25N040ATCS04-0 (CSH405DCJ8YA2B) ]

    ATA Device Properties:
      Model ID                                          IC25N040ATCS04-0
      Serial Number                                     CSH405DCJ8YA2B
      Revision                                          CA4OA72A
      Parameters                                        77520 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector
      LBA Sectors                                       78140160
      Buffer                                            1768 KB (Dual Ported, Read Ahead)
      Multiple Sectors                                  16
      ECC Bytes                                         4
      Max. PIO Transfer Mode                            PIO 4
      Max. UDMA Transfer Mode                           UDMA 5 (ATA-100)
      Active UDMA Transfer Mode                         UDMA 5 (ATA-100)
      Unformatted Capacity                              38154 MB

    ATA Device Features:
      SMART                                             Supported
      Security Mode                                     Supported
      Power Management                                  Supported
      Advanced Power Management                         Supported
      Write Cache                                       Supported
      Host Protected Area                               Supported
      Power-Up In Standby                               Supported
      Automatic Acoustic Management                     Not Supported
      48-bit LBA                                        Not Supported
      Device Configuration Overlay                      Supported

    ATA Device Physical Info:
      Manufacturer                                      IBM
      Hard Disk Family                                  Travelstar 40GN
      Family Code Name                                  Cascade
      Form Factor                                       2.5"
      Formatted Capacity                                40 GB
      Disks                                             2
      Recording Surfaces                                4
      Physical Dimensions                               100 x 70 x 9.5 mm
      Max. Weight                                       99 g
      Average Rotational Latency                        7.1 ms
      Rotational Speed                                  4200 RPM
      Max. Internal Data Rate                           245 Mbit/s
      Average Seek                                      12 ms
      Track-To-Track Seek                               2.5 ms
      Full Seek                                         23 ms
      Interface                                         Ultra-ATA/100
      Buffer-to-Host Data Rate                          100 MB/s
      Buffer Size                                       2 MB

    ATA Device Manufacturer:
      Company Name                                      Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
      Product Information                               http://www.hgst.com/products

koshosu · Answer

My Dell was only slightly higher than yours. My old POS HP was slightly higher than my Dell. Specs for each are below:

The Dell:

Running Winblows XP Pro, Service Pack 1 with all the updates up to date

[ FUJITSU MHT2030AT (NN15T3612RTU) ]

    ATA Device Properties:
      Model ID                                          FUJITSU MHT2030AT
      Serial Number                                     NN15T3612RTU
      Revision                                          009A
      Parameters                                        58140 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector
      LBA Sectors                                       58605120
      Buffer                                            2 MB (Dual Ported, Read Ahead)
      Multiple Sectors                                  16
      ECC Bytes                                         4
      Max. PIO Transfer Mode                            PIO 4
      Max. UDMA Transfer Mode                           UDMA 5 (ATA-100)
      Active UDMA Transfer Mode                         UDMA 5 (ATA-100)
      Unformatted Capacity                              28616 MB

    ATA Device Features:
      SMART                                             Supported
      Security Mode                                     Supported
      Power Management                                  Supported
      Advanced Power Management                         Supported
      Write Cache                                       Supported
      Host Protected Area                               Supported
      Power-Up In Standby                               Supported
      Automatic Acoustic Management                     Supported
      48-bit LBA                                        Not Supported
      Device Configuration Overlay                      Supported

    ATA Device Physical Info:
      Manufacturer                                      Fujitsu
      Form Factor                                       2.5"
      Formatted Capacity                                30 GB
      Disks                                             1
      Recording Surfaces                                2
      Physical Dimensions                               100 x 70 x 9.5 mm
      Max. Weight                                       99 g
      Average Rotational Latency                        7.14 ms
      Rotational Speed                                  4200 RPM
      Average Seek                                      12 ms
      Track-To-Track Seek                               1.5 ms
      Full Seek                                         22 ms
      Interface                                         Ultra-ATA/100
      Buffer-to-Host Data Rate                          100 MB/s

    ATA Device Manufacturer:
      Company Name                                      Fujitsu Limited
      Product Information                               http://hdd.fujitsu.com/global/drive

The HP:

Running Windows 2000 Pro Service pack 3, not fully up to date on Windows updates. Has a 800 MHz Celeron, 128 MB SDRAM

It has an IBM Travelstar 20GN, UDMA 66, 4200 RPM rotational speed, 10 GB

Perhaps there is a setting in there that slows it down.....

Message Edited by koshosu on 12-02-2003 07:50 PM

gee_fin · Answer

Hmmm....so it seems this the standard speed for this type of hard drive? Wow. I'm stunned. I feel like I've been shipped a 2.4Ghz monster laptop with a hard drive from four years ago :(

I'm hoping there is a setting in there that Dell (waiting for a couple of days for a customer service response) will tell me to flip and it will all speed up. However, I'm now wondering if the only solution is to buy a new 7,200rpm drive (at a cost of ~£200) to replace this dinosaur my laptop was supplied with? :(

Graeme.

ChrisNYC · Answer

The technical details are beyond me, but if your computer has a stock 4,200 RPM hard drive which is what the 5100's come with, yes, your hard drive is using the older technology (but disk size was much smaller several years ago).  There is a very substantial improvement in performance with the newest notebook hard drives, the 5400 RPM and especially the 7200 RPM ones.  I personally have no problems using a 4200 RPM hard drive in my I-8100 ; but many forum members who do hard-drive intensive tasks have raved about the performance of the latest drives.  So it sounds like you have no choice but to upgrade your hard drive on your brand new computer.  Good luck with and hope you enjoy it.

Storage, Drives & Media

Inspiron 5100 Slow Hard Drive?

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