[boimel]

Hello,
I've got this annoying problem a few days ago and I hope you are willing to help me.

First of all, my specs:
amd a6-3650
4 gb ram
windows 7 64bit
2tb hdd wd20earx for sytem/video files
2tb hdd st2000dm001 for video files (bought a few days ago)
(currently there also is a radeon hd4870, my first idea was a too weak graphics card)

After 10-30 minutes watching a movie/tvshow XBMC needs to buffer the movie (I do not stream my movies over network, it's all on my local disk), which takes about 10 seconds. From this point on, it keeps stopping the movie to buffer all 2-3 minutes. This doesn't happen with all movies/tvshows, but all of the movies on which I'm getting this error were located on the new hdd, the seagate one. All of my movies are in the *.mkv format. A 1080p movie did not stop, while a 720p with a much smaller bitrate did. I'm a bit confused. I tested the seagte hdd with HD Tune. This is the result:
http://upload.boimel.net/1358184114.PNG
I did it twice and I had twice this massive drop to 12 mb/s. Is this maybe the problem?

Thanks for your help,
boimel.

[thethirdnut]

Try smartctl short and long tests. Sounds like suspect HDD.

This appears to be a good SMART-based Windows tool. http://code.google.com/p/hddguardian/

[boimel]

Thanks.

No errors on the short test. Running the extended self-test at the moment. Will take 3-4 hours. I'll post the result.

[Julian]

2 other things you can try
disable sleeping on the hd. - or setting your power settings in windoze to hi-perf
is the drive is on the sata 3 port, try and use the sata 2 port if your system is applicable, you may also have jumpers on the drive to move.
I have the earx drive and it gave me problems also, but it is good now.

[boimel]

Hello,
hddguardian doesn't work for me. I ran it twice and it simply doesn't stop. It says "Self-test routine in progress at 100%" for hours. So I can't post a result yet.

I have this motherboard: ASRock A75M-HVS (http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=a75m-hvs) which has no sata 2 ports. There are also no jumpers and no bios settings.

What I did is to change the sata cable and port.

I tested again.
wd20earx wroks fine:
http://upload.boimel.net/1358353380.PNG

st2000dm001 is shaky:
http://upload.boimel.net/1358353205.PNG

I don't know what to do... is it possible the hdd is broken? In this case I've got warranty.

Thank you for your help, so far.

[thethirdnut]

I'd suggest you dload the Seagate tools then...they're going to likely want some proof before an RMA anyways. http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/

Sorting these things out and checking smartctl periodically is a good practice as well.

[boimel]

Ok, There is not much information given from SeaTools. It only says something like "no errors found"... I don't know the exact english sentence. There is a firmeware update I will do tomorrow evening.

Thanks for your help.

[boimel]

Hello!
Yesterday evening I watched two episodes of the tv show which gave me the buffering problem every time I watched it and had not a single stop to buffer, without even doing anything. I guess that just was luck. So I updated the hdd to the latest firmware release.
Tests:
1st:
http://upload.boimel.net/1358440339.PNG
2nd:
http://upload.boimel.net/1358440656.PNG
3rd:
http://upload.boimel.net/1358440925.PNG

It looks better but there are still some big drops. I'll test another two episodes this evening.

Thank you so far.