Sound and speed problems

[floshy]

Hi,
My VAIO VGN- FS215B, star ted acting very weird recently, it has become slower even though I have scanned for viruses several times. Also there seems to be somehting wrong with the sound system, whenever I am performing a task and the light starts flashing (showing it is doing something) the music I am listening to goes really slurry and goes really slow, the earphone socket also needs a little bit of wiggling before sounds are clear. Pls any help would be much appreciated.

[chris_lewis]

Hi Floshy, welcome to CV :smileygrin:

You mention you have scanned for viruses but do you have a spyware scanner too?

AVG Anti Spyware is good, as is Adaware.

It sounds like your PC is using up all its recources, could be worth trying Tune-up too.

www.Tune-up.com

HTH

[Zagster]

Hi floshy and welcome to the Club,

Chris got a point when it comes to spyware and maybe tune-up.

Also, have you defragmented your hard drive recently? It sounds like your system is struggling when accessing it (The flashing light you see is hard disk accessing). Disk Defragmenter is located in Start--->All Programs--->Accessories--->System Tools

Stam

[jackba]

Hi, I'm the owner of a VGN-FS315S notebook and experience similar problems. Actually it is when the HDD is working (blinking yellow light) that the sound becomes slurry or any application slows down.

The HDD is definately working very slow since in order to copy-paste a file of 150MB needs almost 3-4 minutes even in Safe Mode (is this acceptable even for a 4200 or 5400rpm drive?).

I've searched for spyware, viruses etc but everything seems to be ok (i'm using antivirus and firewall from day one and never had any problems)

I also used Tune-up to clean and defragment the registry as well as Diskeeper to defragment the hard disk.

I suspected a HDD problem and used Fujitsu diagnostic (v. 6.61 works in Win XP) which found no hard disk on my system!!! But as mentioned from another member in the forum it seems that actually the diagnostic tool is still not working (http://www.club-vaio.com/clubvaio/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=31475&offset=30#149993)
I also used Scanndisk and "HDD Regeneration 1.51" to search for bad clusters but none was found. Also used a program to monitor the HDD performance but nothing has been reported so far.

Any ideas? Could this be only software-OS related problem?

[jackba]

I think i found the problem.

The problem occurs when (description from Microsoft link given below)
"....Windows IDE/ATAPI Port driver (Atapi.sys) receives a cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical redundancy check (CRC) errors, the driver reduces the communications speed (the transfer mode) from the highest Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver continues to receive time-out or CRC errors, the driver eventually reduces the transfer mode to the slowest mode (PIO mode)."

The following workaround worked for me. Also a registry modification is given in the link for permanent results

WORKAROUND
To re-enable the typical, or faster, transfer mode for an affected device:
1.Double-click Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
2.Click System Tools, and then click Device Manager.
3.Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node.
4.Double-click the controller for which you want to restore the typical DMA transfer mode.
5.Click the Driver tab.
6.Click Uninstall.
7.When the process completes, restart your computer. When Windows restarts, the hard disk controller is re-enumerated and the transfer mode is reset to the default value for each device that is connected to the controller.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472/