Since our SZ1/XP laptop returned from its repair late 2006 we immediately noticed that video held on the hard drive plays back jerkily (both visual and sound),Windows XP boots up more slowly, and we can hear much more hard drive parking clicking noises (coinciding with the orange HDactive light) when running. It's as though the HD reading arm is having to return to rest every 3 or 4 seconds before resuming reading. I have run the hard drive testing utility HDDscan v 2.8 which clearly shows over a 17 minute trace that there were 273 instances of a block reading taking greater than 500ms and 398 instances in the 17 minute test between 100ms and 150ms when all block read times should be approx 5ms or 10ms. As Sony fitted a new motherboard and retained the original hard drive I suspect either the new motherboard or perhaps a faulty cable. Or could it be a virus or a software problem? My question is whether restoring the laptop to its original state might cure the problem as I would hate to return it to France for repair and get charged for a problem not Sony's responsibility.
