Re: [Thinkpad] T43 running VERY slow, hard drive in PIO mode

Well, the first thing is to check the BIOS and the power manager to make
sure you have it set for full speed. A PIO hard drive will not make the
mouse choppy, but running at 1/4 speed will.
Next do all the anti-spyware stuff (spybot and Adaware). Spyware is a big
culprit on this stuff.
UNINSTALL America On Line 9.0 AND McAfee. They cause endless problems of
this type.
The hard drive does need to be reset to DMA. I think you need to do a Google
search to find the exact method, and you need to determine why it keeps
going back to PIO. On an A31, for example, if you suspend the system a few
times, the drives will drop back to PIO, as XP somehow sees it as an error.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Lagreca" <lagreca@gmail.com>
To: "Deanna Berman" <dberman@4dv.net>
Cc: <thinkpad@stderr.org>
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Thinkpad] T43 running VERY slow, hard drive in PIO mode

> I don't believe you can. It is set to use DMA if possible. From what
> I've read, the way to get it back into DMA mode is to uninstall the
> IDE controller and reboot. It should then come back in DMA mode,
> until it receives a cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical
> redundancy check (CRC) errors, then it will go back into PIO mode
> automatically.
>
> I believe I narrowed the problem down to either the hard drive, or the
> SATA/IDE controller. Since I have already replaced the hard drive,
> I'm starting to think the SATA/IDE controller must be bad.
>
> Joe
>
>
> On 3/27/06, Deanna Berman <dberman@4dv.net> wrote:
> > What happens if you manually select DMA?
> >
> > Deanna
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Joe Lagreca" To: <thinkpad@stderr.org>
> > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 10:39 AM
> > Subject: [Thinkpad] T43 running VERY slow, hard drive in PIO mode
> >
> >
> > > My T43 is less than a year old, and has been having strange problems
> > > for months now. I believe I know what the problem is, but I wanted to
> > > run them by this group, and see if anyone else has had similar
> > > problems.
> > >
> > > Sometimes, out of the blue, the computer will start to run REALLY
> > > slow. It will take far longer than normal (5 minutes to start up),
> > > the start up tone will be choppy, my bluetooth mouse will be choppy,
> > > and programs will take forever to load.
> > >
> > > I found that if I did a system restore to a few days previous,
> > > everything would be fine temporarily, until it started running slow
> > > again.
> > >
> > > Some of you may be thinking this is a simple spyware issue, however I
> > > can assure you with 99.999% accuracy that it is NOT. I have done
> > > several fresh installations, wiping the hard drive clean each time,
> > > and end up with the same problems.
> > >
> > > All of my drivers, bios, etc are all up to date using the Lenovo
> > > software updater tool.
> > >
> > > I eventually found a very strange error in the system log:
> > >
> > > "A driver packet received from the I/O subsystem was invalid. The
> > > data is the packet." There were a few other errors in the log as
> > > well, however I'm not in front of the laptop right now, so I can't see
> > > them.
> > >
> > > If I check the IDE controller, it shows it as being in PIO mode, which
> > > would explain the slowness
> > > (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472/en-us). It would also explain
> > > how the problem is solved when I do a system restore, because it goes
> > > back to a time when the drive was running in DMA mode.
> > >
> > > Lenovo replaced the hard drive, which solved the problem for about a
> > > month. But just a few days ago, the problem occurred again. I'm
> > > starting to think it may be that the SATA/IDE controller on board is
> > > bad?
> > >
> > > I am going to call Lenovo tonight, but wanted to check with other
> > > Thinkpad users before to see if anyone else has had this problem
> > > before.
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > Joe
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Thinkpad mailing list
> > > Thinkpad@stderr.org
> > > http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
> > >
> >
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Received on Mon Mar 27 14:26:45 2006