I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop, which runs exceedingly slowly due to HDD accesses. For what is unknown. Processor activity is running at about 5% - but while the machine is still working, it is so slow as to be unusable. Just booting Windows and then shutting down again takes around 10 minutes. However everything is working - if you have all day to wait for it to happen.
A test of this HDD by running CHKDSK reported that some sectors were unusable.
A replacement HDD was fitted. It was partitioned into two partitions, and Win XP loaded. At this point all appeared to be well. As Zonealarm Pro and TweakXP were loaded, the fault came back, and has remained ever since. No other software was loaded.
Removing ZoneAlarm and TweakXP has not cleared the fault.
I then assumed a fault in the IDE controller, and changed the motherboard. Again the fault remained as before.
Running Dell diagnostics on the second motherboard with the second HDD showed no problems anywhere - all tests passed. The HDD test is quite rigorous and runs for some hours. Although all tests passed, it did show some odd behaviour at times: the READ test for instance typically goes through 10,000 blocks/sec - but on this one it would hesitate and slow right down as though there was some problem in reading certain blocks. No fault reported though.
Running CHKDSK on the second HDD also shows odd results. The C partition (where WinXP resides) showed no problems. The D partition (empty) was reported to have "unrecoverable errors".
The components that remained the same between the swop of motherboard and HDD were:
- the LCD screen
- the video board
- the CD drive
- the battery charger board
- the RAM
- the LED/switch board
- the modem/ethernet interface
- the fans and heatsink assembly
- the processor
- the case
- the mains power supply (no battery fitted)
Of this list, on the processor seems to be a possible candidate for a fault which could affect both motherboard/HDD setups. I don't have a spare processor to try and don't want to spend out just to test this theory. (No faults show up Dell diagnostics).
Can anyone shed any light on this - or suggest further tests that could pinpoint where the fault lies?
