gigabyte ma790x-ds4 Native IDE Problem

[XolanRoe]

Greets!

I've had the ma790x-ds4 motherboard for a few years now with no problems. I've always used a Western Digital HD with it (HDDSATA160 SATA II HD). I use Windows XP as my OS.

A few days ago I started getting massive system lag. To make a long story short, I tracked the problem down using System Explorer which indicated I had 50-60% CPU usage from "Hardware Interrupts and DPCs" whenever my HD was being used.

That prompted me to deactivate and change some peripheral settings in my BIOS. I traced the problem to having my HD in "Native IDE" mode. All the system lag goes away immediately when I put it on "Legacy IDE" mode.

This pc has been using Native IDE for years with no problems up till now. So my questions are...

1) Does this indicate an immanent hardware failure? I'm not sure if the motherboard or HDD is going bad.

2) Or perhaps some Windows Driver Update created this problem. Any known issues you're aware of?

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

[absic]

Hi,

I'm not aware of any issues with recent updates but that doesn't mean that there aren't any. It would be unlikely that your hardware is failing and the problem is more likely due to the software/hardware environment on your PC.

The problem with latency issues could be due to many factors and without knowing your full system specs and configuration it is hard to give any firm advice.

Switching from Native to Legacy IDE mode will mean that your HDD is currently running with a dedicated IRQ which is probably why the system lag has vanished as the HDD is no longer sharing resources with other hardware.

[XolanRoe]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm running ok in Legacy IDE mode but I want to get to the bottom of why Native IDE suddenly causes problems. What information do you need me to post?

I looked through System Information and Device Manager and couldn't find any clear IRQ conflicts. Thanks again for any help.

[absic]

Hi again,

if you could post back with your full system specs it would help with looking at what might be causing this issue as, being totally honest, I am a bit puzzled as to why Native IDE has suddenly started playing up on your rig. Also any information on recent hardware & software changes that you may have done.

Often, when trying to find an answer to this kind of issue, it is something that you wouldn't usually consider that has caused the problem so the more details you can give, the better.

[XolanRoe]

This is a puzzle indeed!

Here's some extracts from System Information:
Using Native IDE
Using Legacy IDE

Here's System Resource Reports from Device Manager:
Using Native IDE
Using Legacy IDE

There were no hardware or software changes that I'm aware of when the problem arose. That's why I thought the culprit might be hardware failure or a Windows Update.

I recall the problem starting in late April / Early May. I first thought AVG Free Antivirus was the problem so I uninstalled it and switched to Microsoft Security Essentials on May 6 but still had the same issue. A couple days after May 6 I narrowed it down to Native IDE mode in my BIOS.

Here's my Windows Update History around the time the problem started.

If you need anything more just let me know. Thanks again!

[absic]

Hi and thanks for the information.

Having waded through it nothing jumps out as being particularly bad and I still haven't come across any other users complaining about problems of this nature after Windows updates.

The question is where do you go from here? 
If I were faced with your situation I would probably do a clean install of the OS to see if that made a difference and to eliminate the software environment as a possible cause. Having had to do a lot of troubleshooting of this nature I always keep a spare HDD for this purpose, rather than lose the existing system, if you have a spare HDD then this would be a relatively simple exercise. Just remove your current C:/ drive from your PC, replace it with the blank one, reinstall Windows XP and see if things work as they should.

If you don't have a spare HDD to do this then the decision is a little harder to make and only you can decide if the problem warrants either, buying a spare HDD or taking the time to back up the important things on your HDD (pictures, music, documents, e-mails etc) and then wiping the drive to start again.

If everything works with a clean install then you can be fairly certain that the problem is from the software environment, either a driver conflict or some such. If the problem persists then your original thoughts, of a possible hardware failure would be the more likely scenario.

[XolanRoe]

Thanks for looking over my info and offering advice.

I'm kinda old school and use Ghost to make an image of my entire HDD. So I could try wiping everything out and doing a clean install of Windows. If that doesn't work I'll have to buy a new HDD which I could use anyway. And if that doesn't work then it's more than likely something going wrong with my motherboard.

Thanks again for the assistance. Case not closed but I'll file it away for now.