Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H extreme system sluggishness

[azygos]

PC Specs

> Mainboard : Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H Rev 1.1
> Chipset : AMD 785GX
> Processor : AMD Phenom II X2 555 @ 3200 MHz
> Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM ) 800 mhz Kingston
> Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 4200
> Hard Disk : WDC (1000 GB)
> DVD-Rom Drive : HP DVD Writer 1260r
> DVD-Rom Drive : MagicISO Virtual DVD-ROM0000
> Monitor Type : Samsung SyncMaster - 22 inches
> Network Card : RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
> Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2
> DirectX : Version 9.0c (April 2009)


I am suffering from severe system sluggishness ever since i owned this new machine and my first gigabyte mb. The sluggishness is maximum in XP Sp2, then Windows 7 Ultimate 64
nd least in Ubuntu 9.04 [all are installed dual boot]
This sluggishness is maximum while installing any software larger than 500 mb. For instance, installing Virtua Tennis took over 40 minutes. Britannica 2009 took 1.5 hours.
Multitasking is also a real pain. WHile copying data from an external HDD, i experience sluggishness on all the OSs. This sluggishness
is also reflected in the hard disk LED which becomes constant with occassional flickering while installing/copying and computer becomes generally less responsive until the
process is completed which moreover is prolonged if I try to run any other application during the process.

Despite barely any start up processes except an AV, the boot time for XP is around 1 minute. For Windows 7, it is not too great either. Infact, the machine
is much slower than even my two year old low budget asus m2n mx se/amd athlon 64 with 2 gb of ram


In Bios, Sata is set to IDE mode. Is this responsible for the incredibly poor performance. It is very difficult to change to AHCI and I require convincing that the mode alone
is responsible for the system sluggishness. Moreover, nowhere did Gigabyte mention that this mobo is practically unusable in IDE mode. All my components are compatible with the
this board yet I am experiencing this bizarre problem. MY RAM and HDD are ok, there are no errors.


Totally frustrated and really require some help
 

[absic]

Ouch! Sorry to read about the slow speeds you are encountering.

First off setting the HDD to IDE shouldn't really make that much difference. Until recently I was running the same Mobo that you have and had no problems with speed. Also, trying to convert to AHCI after install is not a very enjoyable experience and it is often better and easier to start again.

The issue could though, be caused by your HDD. Could you be a little more specific about which one you are using (WDC 1000gb)? I have come across issues of system slowdown when using certain Hard-drives especially if they are power saving versions or such like.

[azygos]

You are bang on.  It took me 4 days to figure it out. It was the WD10EARS playing dirty. Using the WD Alignment Tool fixed the sluggishness to a large extent except that this HDD at 5400 rpm, despite its 64 mb cache is significantly slower than standard 1 tb drives. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone especially those who plan to use it as a primary os drive.

[jasperdog]

I have exactly the same motherboard and booting into Windows 7 (64 bit) is fast. Did you install W7 from scratch? That may be the key.

On my system, "starting windows" appears at 22 seconds, and the desktop appears at 70 seconds with wireless internet access (Hawking adaptor) at 75 seconds.

About half the post time is taken up by the ACPI screen where it detects the hard drive and BDROM Combo drive. BTW, I 1st installed as IDE and then changed to ACPI. It was a hassle but seems fine now. If ACPI is taking a long time, maybe there's a firmware update for your HD that will fix it.

[Sartre]

If you didn't install windows with AHCI enabled, all you have to do is:
- open Device Manager (or download pserv)
- enable "Show hidden devices" under the View menu
- open the Non-plug and Play Drivers section
- double-click msahci and set it to start at boot
- reboot and enable AHCI in the bios.
- Install the AMD drivers.




There's very little measureable difference between IDE mode and AHCI on these AMD chipsets so it's not a big deal. Not measureable with traditional disk benchmarks at least.