# Computer Help Needed! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 16, 2001, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243 "2001-03-16T16:12:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/1 "2001-03-16T16:12:58Z")
I’m something of a computer tech myself, but this has me stumped. My home PC is a Celeron 333 with 64MB and a 512K cache. My problem is for some reason, one of my hard drives starts spinning and slows down the computer. This is usually just an annoyance when I’m playing one of my many games, but I have a feeling this slowness is also what’s been causing my computer to sometimes completely freeze when accessing the internet. My C drive is a 15Gig, and error checking takes a long time when rebooting after a freeze. Any ideas as to what’s going on with my system and what I can do about it? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/2 "2001-03-16T16:15:15Z")
My OS is Win98. ---
**Author:** ![Xerxes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/d2c977/32.png) [@Xerxes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xerxes)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/3 "2001-03-16T16:23:09Z")
> [@](#): > > My problem is for some reason, one of my hard drives starts spinning and slows down the computer. If your drive spins up at any time other than boot, is it possible you have some power-saving enabled in bios and/or windoze? (i.e. drive X will powerdown after N minutes of inactivity). This wouldn’t bode well (imho) for gaming or any other time-critical s/w (some midi sequencers / audio editors perhaps). Just my $.02 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/4 "2001-03-16T16:35:29Z")
My system is set to powerdown the drives after 1 hour. However, the light is flashing about every 10 minutes. Come to think of it, I didn’t start having this problem until I activated a BIOS feature called SMART. I assume SMART is some sort of read-ahead device, I’ll disable it when I get home and see if performance improves. ---
**Author:** ![Xerxes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/d2c977/32.png) [@Xerxes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xerxes)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/5 "2001-03-16T16:49:33Z")
Well, this site [http://www.rojakpot.com/Speed\_Demonz/BIOS\_Guide/BIOS\_Guide\_01d.htm](http://www.rojakpot.com/Speed_Demonz/BIOS_Guide/BIOS_Guide_01d.htm) says: > [@](#): > > HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability > > Options : Enabled, Disabled > > This option enables/disables support for the hard disk’s S.M.A.R.T. capability. The S.M.A.R.T. (Self Monitoring Analysis And Reporting) technology is supported by all current hard disks and it allows the early prediction and warning of impending hard disk disasters. You should enable it so that S.M.A.R.T. aware utilities can monitor the hard disk’s condition. Enabling it also allows the monitoring of the hard disk’s condition over a network. There’s no performance advantage in disabling it even if you don’t intend to use the S.M.A.R.T. technology. > > However, there’s a possibility that enabling S.M.A.R.T. may cause spontaneous reboots in networked computers. Johnathan P. Dinan mentioned such an experience with S.M.A.R.T. enabled. S.M.A.R.T. may be sending packets of data through the network even though there’s nothing monitoring those data packets. This may have caused the spontaneous reboots that he had experienced (Comment #103). So, try disabling HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability if you experience reboots or crashes while you are on a network. So it may be that it periodically does _something_ which your game objects to. Can’t see any harm in turning it off to see… ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/6 "2001-03-16T18:17:02Z")
I doubt I have any S.M.A.R.T. aware utilities, so I guess I should just go back to having it disabled anyway. ---
**Author:** ![aenea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@aenea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aenea)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/7 "2001-03-16T18:25:26Z")
So any call to the Hdd, to read or write from that device, will slow your entire perfomance down. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/8 "2001-03-16T18:48:02Z")
Just a thought. Assuming the HD is spinning up because the system needs to make virtual mem or access the disk (for whatever reason) adding a 128 meg DIMM to your system RAM (which are super cheap lately 65- 75 or so) would probably cut down on disk access and enhance overall performance somewhat. Also make sure your WIn98 hard drive settings under the system /device manager/hd properties tab in control panel are set to use DMA. If this option is not activated any IDE disk access will have to be mediated by the CPU and this can bog the system considerably. ---
**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/9 "2001-03-16T18:52:31Z")
Check to see if you have something called Findfast (or Fastfind) in your startup folder. This program causes hard drive activity for several minutes at a time, several times per day. I think it is installed as part of MS Office or some other Microsoft program. It is completely worthless and can be removed. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/10 "2001-03-16T19:31:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Baraqiyal \* > \*\*Check to see if you have something called Findfast (or Fastfind) in your startup folder. This program causes hard drive activity for several minutes at a time, several times per day. I think it is installed as part of MS Office or some other Microsoft program. It is completely worthless and can be removed. \*\* Very likely. Findfast is indeed installed by MS office. It is a background file indexing utility intended to allow rapid lookup of your documents, and which most people find far more annoying than useful. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/11 "2001-03-16T21:15:23Z")
Well, I don’t have MS Office at home, ergo no Findfast. However, I will check my hard drive settings, and have been meaning to see my brother for more memory. Also considered getting a faster CPU, my motherboard is capable of up to 550mHz in Slot 1. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/12 "2001-03-17T00:35:52Z")
There is a windows program ‘system monitor’ that lets you know what programs are doing what, you might find out whats going on. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/13 "2001-03-17T04:16:04Z")
I already check the system monitor peoridicly. Everthing seems fine there. I have now disabled SMART and enabled DMA for both my HDs. I’m still getting a little lag in games, but nowhere near as bad as before. More memory might remove the lag altogether. As for my internet freezing, I’m on AOL and have both version 4 and 5 installed on my computer, I’m in the earlier one right now because it seems more reliable for my system. I’m not even going to bother with 6 yet. Thanks for the help, all. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2001, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/14 "2001-03-30T15:50:11Z")
I still don’t know why my AOL 5.0 started freezing. After I got tired of rebooting after 5.0 freezes, I decided to reinstall 4.0; apparently some sort of conflict resulted. I have since removed 5.0, and things seem to have improved. Now, I sometimes just need to turn off the power for a while before starting AOL, and it won’t freeze. ---
**Author:** ![dietrologia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@dietrologia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dietrologia)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2001, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-help-needed/58243/15 "2001-03-30T22:55:46Z")
Jeff, My guess is that if you increased your memory to 128MB this problem will disappear. When using a program that is very memory-intensive (like games) the most commonly used data is stored in memory. When the memory gets full, the cpu will swap data between it and the hard drive rather than it and the memory – a slow process (in computer terms).