Hard Drive?

Question

Repair man changed our hard drive for one half the size, would this make a difference to the connection or running speed of the computer?
My son has played Quake 3 for ages but now he says that because the computer is running so slow he's unable to play it anymore and all this has occurred since the smaller hard drive was installed.

Answer 1

Ummm... Tillybaby.

Firstly i wouldn't have been happy with the reapir replacing the the orignal HDD (Hard Disk Drive) with 1 that is 1/2 size. He should have replaced like for like that unless you was unbale to afford the cost..

Explanination: In short - Yes it could and/or it can have an effect on the computers overall performance.

Diagnosis: Not knowing any more information it's hard to diagnosis the exact casue, but it could and porbbaly is down to the Perfomrance and capacity of the new HDD.

Without getting to techincal data/information is stored onto the disk in the form of files. A file is simply a named collection of bytes. The bytes might be the ASCII codes for the characters of a text file, or they could be the instructions of a software application for the computer to execute, or they could be the records of a data base, or they could be the pixel colors for a GIF image. No matter what it contains, however, a file is simply a string of bytes. When a program running on the computer requests a file, the hard disk retrieves its bytes and sends them to the CPU one at a time.

There are two ways to measure the performance of a hard disk:

Data rate - The data rate is basicly the number of bytes per second that the drive can deliver to the CPU. Rates between 5 and 40 megabytes per second are common. Obivously the higher the rate the better.

Seek time - The seek time is bascily the amount of time between when the CPU requests a file and when the first byte of the file is sent to the CPU. Times between 10 and 20 milliseconds are common. The lower the number the better.

The other important parameter is the capacity of the drive, which is the number of bytes it can hold. This is not only important determine how much data can be stored but becomes cruial when determining Vitual Memory or Page File size..

Whats Virtual Memory? Virtual memory is a common part of most operating systems on desktop computers. It has become so common because it provides a big benefit for users at a very low cost.

Basicly it is becoming more and more often, that amount of RAM is not enough to run all of the programs that most users expect to run at once. For example, if you load the Windows operating system, an e-mail program, a Web browser, word processor, and or a game into RAM simultaneously, 256 or 512 megabytes is going to struggle or even not enough to hold it all. If there were no such thing as virtual memory, your computer would have to say, "Sorry, you cannot load any more applications. Please close an application to load a new one." However with virtual memory, the computer can look for areas of RAM that have not been used recently and copy them onto the hard disk. This frees up space in RAM to load the new application. Because it does this automatically, you don't even know it is happening, and it makes your computer feel like is has unlimited RAM space even though it has only a small amount installed.

Because hard-disk space is so much cheaper than RAM chips, virtual memory also provides a nice economic benefit. However and in here lies the other problem that maybe causing your performace drain. the read/write speed of a hard drive is much slower than RAM, and the technology of a hard drive is not geared toward accessing small pieces of data at a time.

So if the HDD has a low data rate and a high seek time coupled with if your system having to rely too heavily on virtual memory, you will notice a significant performance drop.

In short - yes your son my very well be unable to play Quake 3.

Solution: You obivous buy a new HDD with greater performace and capcity. - But if you have already just purchased a replacement HDD this may not be a viable affordable solution.

Another viable solution is to purchase some more RAM so you can reduce the amount of Virtual memory required.

The only other option is to close down all unnesscary programs that maybe running in the background (look at task manager and select process to see just a few of how many process are running), careful here though some process are needed by the OS.

If you are not sure - look at the bottom righthand corner of the screen near the clock and see if any programs are running like Anti virus etc. Just as a heads up Norton uses a lot of Memory RAM in the background.

You could run the OS ultiles to delete old files and defrag the HDD, along with stopping unwanted programs and by ensuring you have all the updated drivers - your son might be able to run the game.

my question is why did the repair man use a smaller HDD and why didn't he advise you - in short i wouldn't use him again

DM

MCP MCSA MCSE+S BIT

Answer 2

there are actually quite a few things you can check after having installed a new drive. however you shouldnt have to do any of it your self. if you just had this drive put in by an IT guy get him back out there. when i leave a clients everyone is 100% happy and if something goes wrong and it has something to do with what i just did, i take care of it at no charge.
a few things you can try if you want are:
make sure you have all the windows updates do this here http://www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
he could have replaced the hard drive with a slower one not that it would be super noticable but if he put a 4200rpm drive and you had a 7200rpm before there will be some difference.
you can open the pc and see if he accidently knocked a RAM stick out of place. if so just push it in til it snaps in place.
why did he replace it with one half the size is that what you asked for. if not i would check if you still have the same amount of RAM you did before he came there. to do this right click my computer choose properties the RAM info will show up at the bottom of the new window.
you can also check to see if you are missing any drivers that may be slowing you pc down. to do this:
right click on my computer choose manage-then device manager-look on the right side if you see any little yellow exclamation marks neat any of those items they are not working right. you can double click those items and the pc will tell you whats wrong with them.
those are things that this guy should have checked before he finished though.
good luck

Answer 3

My first question is, why was a smaller drive installed?

To answer your questions, the answer is yes, but with explanation. Your computer performance can be affected by a slow hard drive. Hard drive speed is measured in Revolutions Per Minute (RPM). The higher the RPM, the faster the drive. Say for instance your original (larger) drive was 7200 RPM and was replaced with a 5400 RPM you can see you have lost approx 1,800 RPMs in speed, which will cause to computer to take a longer time to retrieve the requested data for processing. That's just one factor; another factor is if you do not have sufficient RAM (memory) in your computer and went from a larger drive to a smaller drive, your computer has less space to dump excess information causing the system to slow up. There could be other issues as well, but it would take more information to determine the exact cause(s). I hope this bit of information helps.

Answer 4

A smaller drive would give you a lot of problem. A physically smaller drive need not have smaller capacity. For example i am using a 80GB hard drive which is 1/2 the size of the 10GB hard drive i used long ago. Its the capacity of the drive that matters. Capacity of the drive is most probably written on the top side of the drive in a white stiker. Slow computer could be because of a number of reasons like your pc has been infected with virus.

Answer 5

Are you sure that the drive is smaller? If so, you should contact the repair shop manager or owner. That is not ethical behavior.
The greater chance is that the drive is the same size as original, but has been partitioned. You can usually see the true size of the HDD during bootup by watching the system messages. Another option is to enter system setup during boot and look for the HDD size there. If you are using Windows XP, you can find out by going to Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information. Once that tool loads, click on 'Components', then 'Storage', then 'Drives'.
The information that you need will be there.

Answer 6

the size of the drive shouldn't make a difference on the speed of the system unless its caching some of the info on the hard drive- most likely, some of the memory configs are not the same, so it has to be configured. I would do an unistall and reinstall of quake IF AND ONLY IF it doesn't delete his settings for his game. If it does, I'd go to Quake TechSupport's Faq page and check there.

good luck.

Ww

Answer 7

Possible: Yes

Probable: NO

Likely: Nope

If you had a Hard Drive that was running at 10,000 rpm and it were replaced with one that runs at 7200 rpm. It would be slower but not where it would be noticeable. However, he likelihood that you had a 10,000 rpm hard drive to begin with, is slim.

It's more likely that your operating has not been updated since he reinstalled Windows. Go to and keep running and restarting (when required) Windows Update until you have them all.

Your computer was more than likely restored to the date the disk he recovered the operating system from was created. You need to bring it current.

See if that helps and there's a a few other tips and trick I can offer. Feel free to write me at [e-mail]

Answer 8

sounds like you been done to me...get the repair guy back in and show him that you son's games won't work and if he argues with you put the point to him that why on earth would your son have the games on the comp before if he couldn't play them when the old HD was installed..insist on him putting it right so that your son's games play properly

Answer 9

Most likely you don't have the correct or up-to-date hardware drivers for you video card/system.