Windows 7 Hard Drive Grinding/4sec hang when Simple Tasks are Performed

[Zeos]

I had ignored it for the first few days here on Win7, but now it is being real annoying. First off hardware list.

Win7-64-enterprise
PhenomII 940
4Gb 1066 Muskin
MSI K9A2 Platinum
His 4890 1g
Audigy 1 pci
No raid in use
No Overclocking
Windows is installed on a 120 ide WD on a separate 14gb partition (4gb free currently) with the systemp on the other 100gb part of the same hd.
No paging file used on that hd
Using AVG 9 free, Various windows tweaks.
More if needed



The issue is as follows. During first loads of programs I expect to see my hard-drive light go solid for as second and then the program load. But my issue is when doing things like.

-expanding a menu
-opening a dialogue (in almost any random program)
-opening the addons list in FF.
-navigating between folders in explorer
-Clicking an Auto Download link (no Dialogue)
-Saving this edited POST!!!!!
-pasting text!

Sometimes.. NOT ALL THE TIME but sometimes when I try to do these things (and others) my HD light will go solid for 3-5 seconds and the program will hang(Not the Whole PC) and then when the HD stops the action is completed.

The "pasting text" one that just happened is what brings me here. Can anyone explain what would cause this sort of thing?

Nothing in my Process explorer has very high I/O reads/writes and I have tried to monitor it several ways while it happens. My CPU doesn't spike either.

 

[busydog]

I would suggest running a Hard Disk Diagnosis Utility like Crystal Disk Info Download - Check at any time the status of your hard drive and its temperature. before proceeding further.

I had ignored it for the first few days here on Win7, but now it is being real annoying. First off hardware list.

Win7-64-enterprise
PhenomII 940
4Gb 1066 Muskin
MSI K9A2 Platinum
His 4890 1g
Audigy 1 pci
No raid in use
No Overclocking
Windows is installed on a 120 ide WD on a separate 14gb partition (4gb free currently) with the systemp on the other 100gb part of the same hd.
No paging file used on that hd
Using AVG 9 free, Various windows tweaks.
More if needed



The issue is as follows. During first loads of programs I expect to see my hard-drive light go solid for as second and then the program load. But my issue is when doing things like.

-expanding a menu
-opening a dialogue (in almost any random program)
-opening the addons list in FF.
-navigating between folders in explorer
-Clicking an Auto Download link (no Dialogue)
-Saving this edited POST!!!!!
-pasting text!

Sometimes.. NOT ALL THE TIME but sometimes when I try to do these things (and others) my HD light will go solid for 3-5 seconds and the program will hang(Not the Whole PC) and then when the HD stops the action is completed.

The "pasting text" one that just happened is what brings me here. Can anyone explain what would cause this sort of thing?

Nothing in my Process explorer has very high I/O reads/writes and I have tried to monitor it several ways while it happens. My CPU doesn't spike either.

 

[Zeos]

I would suggest running a Hard Disk Diagnosis Utility before proceeding further.

Here you go

The drive temp should be around 30 C.. Its directly next to the other drive that is 30 C and they feel the same to the touch.

Never knew the hour count on the drive before. 28k isnt SOOO bad.

Would you like any other utilities run on it? Or post the info from the other drives?

PS: Forgot to mention the 7 month old Enermax 620W power supply

 

[Zeos]

A little Update. I just installed Google Sketchup and while working on it for the last few hours going though various menu's and save dialogues it has done the 3 second grind more then a dozen times. The program is installed on a drive separate from my windows.

If GSU caches or has alot of ______ then I suppose it could narrow this down a bit.

 

[Saltgrass]

I think I would be spending some time making a backup image in case the drive is failing...

Is this grinding louder than normal for the drive?

 

[Zeos]

Is this grinding louder than normal for the drive?

Maybe I should clarify. There is no actual "grinding" going on. It is just a term I use for when a hard drive is in full solid LED Activity vs light access of the disk.

So I right click to copy a link.. HD LED SOLID......3-4 seconds later it goes off and the menu pop's up. It is happening at random during actions that should have no reason to access any HD.

When I installed windows I had below the recommended size for the partition 14GB vs the 17.? it wanted. I know it must have left something off or changed some settings due to the size restrictions. Perhaps a cache/pagefile change?

Just happened again in thunderbird. I clicked on a new mail message... GRIND..... 3 seconds later.. done.

Maybe AVG is scanning everything I touch for virii? I will disable it and test tomorrow.

 

[christopherwms]

If you are running a phenom II why on earth are you using an IDE drive. This seems to be an issue of a bad drive. Go get a SATAII drive and just ghost it. Then nothing will be lost.