Problem solved! (aka. ZA Pro sucks)

Apparently the problem was related to my upgrade to Zone Alarm Pro. I haven't started trying to figure out what the specific issue was but with ZA off and the standard firewall back on performance is back to it's normal self. I'll post more information as I get it but for the mean time if someone can suggest a better firewall I'd greatly appreciate it.

The problems continue

I cloned the hard drive over the last couple of days; it actually took that long because of the read speed of the drive. The fact that it took that long leads me to believe that this problem may be a hardware issue but witching the drives out didn't do anything to help the issue.

I'm very close to just turning this $1300 desk weight into a tech center and letting them pound their heads on it for a while.

New HD reading at a BLAZING 0.4 mbs

The following is the description of the wondrous journey of a new HPm7674n its 200gb Seagate drive that's dropping down to 0.4mbs. The problem wasn't terribly noticeable at first but has seemed to get worse and worse as the months have gone by.

I originally posted the problem on the microsoft here. I got a couple of good suggestions and follow up information from the two people who replied and that set me off on a long series of tests in order to try and find out what was going on. Unfortunately the problem is persisting and I've decided to move a lot of the information associated with the problem to here so I can post more than I could on a message group.

The system is running Zone Alarm Pro and the generic microsoft malware program from their support site so I feel relatively confidant in saying that this is not a virus or spyware issue. The problem manifests itself in INCREDIBLY long loading times for applications and in some case documents. Startup can take anywhere from 5 - 10 minutes as all of the services and applications load. From the initial post and information published on the XP group I thought we had a winner in the drive potentially having been switched from DMA to PIO due to disk errors. Unfortunately everything I checked indicates that the drives remain in UDMA-5 and the CPU looks untouched when the disk is reading.

There have been a couple of "weird" problems with the HP since I picked it up several months ago. The ESCI was setup with resource conflicts between some drivers and devices and had to be reset manually. Presumably this was done during the setup of the machine at the factory and was never reset to the represent the new devices. While trying to find anything else that may have been causing this issue I did note that the bios was set up to recognize the dual 200gb drives as raid disks but the raid controller from Intel as part of the Intel Application Accelerator didn't have any raid partitions created. Some sources suggested that it might be the IAA itself that would cause these kinds of atrociously slow read times so I uninstalled it, still without making any kind of a difference. Now that IAA is gone though I can at least directly access the drive properties through the Device Manager to check on their setup.

So far I've rescanned the computer for viruses and malware, checked the fragmentation level, reset the BIOS to non-raid and from AHCI to IDE, uninstalled IAA, and run HD Tune and HD Tach both of which confirm that drive performance is dropping to <1mbs> Just to answer another question: The free space on the drive is roughly 25% at 44.9gb of a 200gb drive.

If anyone can provide some assistance or ideas on how to go about resolving this problem I would extraordinarily grateful.

For a sense of what I'm seeing look below...


This is the view of the CPU stats from task manager while one of those ridiculously slow reads is taking place. At the time this was taken the HD was below 1mbs.










And in case someone notices anything that escaped my attention here is the shot of all running processes and information from task manager when this was going on.













Full System Info:
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061
System Model: RK505AA-ABA m7674n
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM


Error Logs:
I have a TON of identical errors under IntelDH
"Could not attach to EL Acpi driver."
IntelQRTD ID 7

I'm also getting a ton of errors in the system event log for
"The Remote Access Connection Manager service depends on the Telephony service which failed to start because of the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. "
Service Control Manager ID 7001

Again, ANY help would be appreciated here

Debugging - ASP Access to path error

Attempting to run a series of aspx pages from within the IDE gives the following error.

Server Error in '/WebApplication1' Application
Access to the path "c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\Temporary ASP.NET Files\webapplication1\8dd84b00\b065eec7" is denied.

Both the ASPNET account and the current user account are local administrators on the machine.
The stack trace shows an IO error in attempting to create the temporary directory.

The directory is set as read-only and won't me reset it. The index serveice isn't running and simple sharing has been turned off for the folder.

No solution yet.

I'll post a solution when I find one but feel free to help.

In tribute to the now legendary guidance of blogbybent.blogspot.com we're proud to announce the first of our friday pet blogging entries. We had considered this before but it's much harder without a pet. Now that Murphy has come home with us we should have numerous opportunities to supply some wonderful pictures for the effort.

She's been wonderful so far but not really in love with the camera. Here are the first few shots we've managed to sneak in.

Relaxing after a hard day of turning the apartment into a puppy racing track.


She picked out this spot on the carpet the first day she got home.

And the search is over!

We found her! Our new puppy will be coming home with us from the pound tomorrow morning. She's an 8 month old aussie cattle dog mix and is absolutely the calmest, most friendly dog I've ever seen. She's so laid back I was worried for a little bit that she might be deaf since she wasn't responding to the other dogs barking at her while we walked around. Anyway, here's her picture off the tallahassee animal shelter site. We'll put more up when we acutally manage to get her home.

And others in the running ...

Along with the Basenji mentioned below there are a number of other breeds that seem like they might fill the bill for us. Here they are ...

Basset Fauve de Bretagne
Harrier
Pharoh Hound
Kooikerhondje - (Eliminated: not necessarily good with kids)
English Cocker Spaniel
Border Terrier
Smooth Fox Terrier
Glen of Imaal Terrier
Boston Terrier
French Bulldog
Schipperke
Australian Cattle Dog
Sweedish Vallhound
Welsh Corgi

We'll let you know as the search continues.

Basenji or Bust

We're looking for a new family pet to fit into a relatively large apartment and we're trying to narrow down the breeds. The first one we'll be examing is the ancient Basenji breed.

Tesla home

Forget just trying to get your hair frizzed at a local science show. Why not adapt a Tesla generator to heat your house, power your car, or electrecute your neighbor?

SPR Funds Evaporating?

President Bush recently decided to halt acquisitions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This series explores where the funds previously ear marked for SPR purchases has gone.

An opening

Another attempt to make a dent in the ever rising tide of unexpressed thoughts sans outlet. We shall explore, discuss, question and most importantly, take up space.

Deus Vult