Laptop HD Question/Advice Needed

[5PointOh]

Hi.  I need some advice on a hard drive.  I have an Asus G75 RoG laptop, with the i7-3630M Win 8 64bit, Nvidia 670MX, and a 5400rpm 1TB HD, I get momentary hang ups during AH, and I believe its mostly due to the speed of the HD. I have an extra bay for a second HD so I was curious on which would be the best.  The main function of this HD will just be AH and maybe FSX.  Any advice or experiences are appreciated.   

1. Seagate Momentus XT STBD750100 - Hybrid hard drive - 750 GB - internal - 2.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 32 MB

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1781897&CatId=8

2. WD Black 750GB Mobile Hard Drive - Designed for performance users - 2.5", SATA 3Gb/s, 7200RPM, 16MB Cache, 9.5mm height, 5-year warranty - WD7500BPKT

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7222557&CatId=2676

3. Samsung 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD128BW 128GB Solid State Drive

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5247117&csid=_61

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Hi.  I need some advice on a hard drive.  I have an Asus G75 RoG laptop, with the i7-3630M Win 8 64bit, Nvidia 670MX, and a 5400rpm 1TB HD, I get momentary hang ups during AH, and I believe its mostly due to the speed of the HD. I have an extra bay for a second HD so I was curious on which would be the best.  The main function of this HD will just be AH and maybe FSX.  Any advice or experiences are appreciated.    

1. Seagate Momentus XT STBD750100 - Hybrid hard drive - 750 GB - internal - 2.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 32 MB

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1781897&CatId=8

2. WD Black 750GB Mobile Hard Drive - Designed for performance users - 2.5", SATA 3Gb/s, 7200RPM, 16MB Cache, 9.5mm height, 5-year warranty - WD7500BPKT

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7222557&CatId=2676

3. Samsung 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD128BW 128GB Solid State Drive

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5247117&csid=_61

Most probably your hangups are not HDD related. You most likely have some malware running in the background or some software you have installed has messed the registry and/or system files. The hdd of your laptop is more than sufficient to play AH without any kind of hangups - and the same goes for the rest of your hardware. My wife has the G75 also and it runs AH with zero problems. Are your hangups happening when new textures get loaded in flight or related to something else, for example pressing the trigger?

If shooting makes you freeze it's your audio drivers probably.

[Denholm]

I'm with MrRipley. There's probably something else going on. That being said, if you really want another Hard Drive, I like option 1 for cache but I also like option 2's warranty. Between those two you'll have to decide if you want speed over longevity. Since I'm not too familiar with solid state drives I won't offer an opinion on option 3.

[gyrene81]

i've started having the minor freezes myself, and it's something to do with objects being loaded, i can see the obj counter ticking off numbers while the screen freezes momentarily. and depending on the terrain, my frame rates can take 1-3 minutes to get up to 60.

i run win7 as light as possible, turn off the anti-virus before starting ah and the system is clear of malware...cpu usage is about where it should be at 60-70% on 2 cores of the amd 965be 3.4ghz.

[5PointOh]

What Jarhed is explaining is the same issue I have.  FR drops to 50, stutter, then Cnt will count down and all is good.  I was thinking perhaps my 5400 hd was just not accessing the info for drawing fast enough.

[Bizman]

I was thinking perhaps my 5400 hd was just not accessing the info for drawing fast enough.

That doesn't sound likely in case of a laptop. That would mean that your other components were super fast compared to the hard disk. That's not the way laptops are built. In an imbalanced Frankensteinian self-build that could be the reason.

There's one thing, though, that could possibly cause slow hdd related issues, but then the entire computer would be slow, not just AH. I mean, if a hard disk starts failing, or if Windows thinks it might be, Windows will drop the speed rating of the hdd. In the days of IDE/PATA disks there was a DMA rating in DeviceManager\IDE ATA-ATAPI controllers\Primary IDE channel\Advanced. Early SATA disks emulated that feature, too. If the value was below UltraDMA 6 (or 5 on older/slower computers) the computer would not act at normal speed. Resetting the hard disk speed rate is a piece of cake: Just remove the Primary ATA or SATA channel in the Device Manager, reboot and let Windows reinstall it along with all disks attached to it and reboot again when asked to. Worth trying... If that fixes the problem, it'd be time to do some more serious testing on the hard drive, not to mention to take extra backups in case the disk would fail any moment.

Since it's a laptop, I won't mention the PSU 

BUT, since it's a laptop, how about the dust bunnies in the cooler system? Modern CPU's slow down if they start to run too hot for the cooler to handle. Clean the cooler fins and ensure that there's space enough under the laptop.

[5PointOh]

I don't really think this is a cooling issue, as its less then 2mo old.  The G75's cooling system is actually very robust, I don't think I've seen it above 40c even after a could hours of playing AH. I was thinking an  i7-3650, 8gb of ram and 3gb dedicated video card would be considered much faster than what a 5400rpm hd could handle.

[Bizman]

It really doesn't matter how old or new a laptop is, it's rather how and where it is used. I've seen a laptop fry in two years, used by a late middle aged couple for mostly banking and e-mailing. It sat on the desk right beneath their bed... And I've seen juveniles use their laptops both in their beds and on soft furniture covered with 3 inch long haired faux fur. Not to mention the lady who used to leave her home laptop on during her workdays, with two cats who loved to sleep on the warm keyboard... I'm not saying you'd fit into these categories, but you get the picture.

Your laptop being that new, I suppose there's still every "Asus" branded program installed and running? Getting rid of them can be a PITA, because some of them either are or contain drivers, but many of them tend to check for updates far more often than would make sense. If you haven't yet, make the factory default media to get rid of that feature, then start optimizing your background programs. PC-decrapifier is one program that might help to find out which programs you could possibly get rid of. If you feel unsecure about totally uninstalling something, checking the update and startup settings for each isn't a waste of time. Black Viper's site is a reputable source for managing both background programs and services even further.

And I'd like to remind, that hard disks can fail in mere weeks, so the advice given for that is still valid.

[gyrene81]

damn, i wish i could flat out argue with Bizman but...i can't.    however, considering the thing hasn't been getting over 40c i think it's fairly safe to check off heat (at least on the cpu) being a problem. i wonder if there is a setting in the bios or elsewhere on the system that throttles the cpu under specific conditions other than heat.

[5PointOh]

I know there is some Asus programs that are buried with drivers, not to mention it's Win 8.  I look through those, either way I'd still like to add a secondary HD, any advice about that?

[gyrene81]

ssd but no smaller than 240gb...unless all you're looking for is storage space.

[Bizman]

damn, i wish i could flat out argue with Bizman but...i can't.   

I take that as a compliment  Thank God for my limited knowledge of finesses in the English language  And yes, 40 c doesn't sound like a temperature problem. Win8 "bios" on the other hand is something I'm not too familiar with, yet. IIRC some of the features can be reached from within Windows itself, but again I can't tell for sure.

A hint: change the tiles view to show all programs and look for the Asus group of programs. Each of them should be able to safely be removed since they aren't Windows components. Make a backup, though, and check the DeviceManager after each removal to see if you've accidentally removed a driver. They're all available from the Asus support site in case of emergency.