Warning: This is a fairly technical discussion that will probably not be of interest to Mom.<\/p>\n
A few times lately I have struggled with people’s computers trying to find out why they are running so sluggishly. When no programs are running, Task Manager shows the CPU usage at 50% – 80%, though the process list doesn’t show anything using any of that processing power. Normally, CPU usage should be between 0% and maybe 4% when idle (at the bottom of the Task Manager window.) I thought at first that there must be a hidden virus, or rootkit running in the background. But I was wrong.<\/p>\n
What happens is that the hard drive is not being accessed in fast DMA mode, but rather in a much slower PIO mode. Windows monitors hard drive errors, and when they reach a certain level it assumes that the drive can’t handle DMA and switches it to PIO. Usually the hard drive can still run in DMA just fine.<\/p>\n
Check it out in Device Manager. Look under “IDE ATA\/ATAPI controllers” at the “Primary IDE Channel”. In Properties, on the Advanced Settings tab, “Current Transfer Mode” should be “Ultra DMA Mode” or something that has the word “DMA” in it.<\/p>\n
If it has fallen back to PIO, the solution is to uninstall the Primary IDE Channel in Device Manager, then reboot. The system may require a second reboot, but in the end it will reinstall the controller, usually back in DMA mode. It will make a huge difference in your performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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