Two drives on the IDE and their both still in warranty so wont be upgrading just yet. DVD writer is on the SATA port. Besides the other chap was using SATA HDD and noticed the same slow down but he never came back to update the thread.

MFT is in 2 fragments, checking last log.

I give up!

Yes I'm about to too, I'm just changing memory use from Programs to System Cache in XP setup to see if that makes any difference but don't hold out much hope.

A final thought - which you've probably thought about already - try playing about with swap file settings. Fixed size (recommended - latest recommendation is to make it the same size as your RAM) try it all on one disk, all on the other disk, split between the two. Probably won't make any difference, but what else have you got to try?

In reply to a post by Banger:

Yes I'm about to too, I'm just changing memory use from Programs to System Cache in XP setup to see if that makes any difference but don't hold out much hope.

Have you tried removing AV?

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

In reply to a post by Banger:

Yes I'm about to too, I'm just changing memory use from Programs to System Cache in XP setup to see if that makes any difference but don't hold out much hope.

Have you tried removing AV?

Saving Settings and trying that now. Slight improvement using system cache when closing a virtual machine.

Well I thought I'd cracked it removing Nod32, but after opening and closing a virtual machine 3 times the problem was back although the system seems much more responsive. Have also moved the paging file to the first partition on the second hard disk as I read this should speed things up. The stall is hardly noticeable when memory is being released from the virtual machine, it gradually ticks over releasing memory, but if there is a big jump that's when the stall occurs.

eg. memory is about 500 mb unused -> close machine -> memory ticks up to about 900 mb free -> then memory jumps to 1200 free and this is when other programs stall.

Edit: Re-installed nod32 and excluded the virtual machine folders from real time scanning and now memory is released instantly eg close machine 500 mb -> 1300 free so not got time to notice any stall, this is doin me head in.

2nd Edit: have played with settings in vmware including "do not swap out memory to page file" which I didn't know was a default setting seems slightly better.

Edited by Banger (Fri 20-Mar-09 23:13:37)

In reply to a post by Banger:

Well I thought I'd cracked it removing Nod32, but after opening and closing a virtual machine 3 times the problem was back although the system seems much more responsive. Have also moved the paging file to the first partition on the second hard disk as I read this should speed things up. The stall is hardly noticeable when memory is being released from the virtual machine, it gradually ticks over releasing memory, but if there is a big jump that's when the stall occurs.

eg. memory is about 500 mb unused -> close machine -> memory ticks up to about 900 mb free -> then memory jumps to 1200 free and this is when other programs stall.

Edit: Re-installed nod32 and excluded the virtual machine folders from real time scanning and now memory is released instantly eg close machine 500 mb -> 1300 free so not got time to notice any stall, this is doin me head in.

2nd Edit: have played with settings in vmware including "do not swap out memory to page file" which I didn't know was a default setting seems slightly better.

Time for a reformat maybe ?

A very long shot but try restoring optimized defaults in your bios (you may have to change your SATA mode to what it was if it resets to AHCI/RAID)

Edited by Pipexer (Sun 22-Mar-09 19:31:37)