Extremely slow HDD performance on Acer 7551

Has anyone else experienced slow performance on their laptop (I wouldn't think this is specific to the Acer but I suppose its possible) where it takes at least 2 seconds or more for the command to seem to be executed? The login prompt is an obvious first example for me (via the command prompt not a DM) where after I enter my username the Password prompt wont appear for about 2-3 seconds and then even after the password being entered the bash prompt wont appear for another 2-3 seconds. The HDD light is active/blinking during these pauses too so its like its seeking for something on the other end of the drive.
Its a standard laptop HDD speed (5400 RPM) but I wouldn't think this would make the hiccups occur. I never noticed this before in other installations such as Fedora and Ubuntu.
Is it possible that its my partition schema? It is as follows:
sda1 --> /boot
sda2 --> /
sda3 --> /var
sda5 --> /swap (logical)
sda6 --> /home (logical)
sda7 --> /tmp (logical)
I have also tried the standard recommended:
sda1 --> /root
sda2 --> /var
sda3 --> /swap
sda5 --> /home (logical)
and still the issue remains. Is it really just my HDD?

t3kka wrote:Reading around on some other threads I found regarding a slow login to tty I noticed some folks state that a large root partition could be the problem. My HDD is 500GB with the root, var, swap, and home partitions being ~80GB, ~20GB, ~6GB, and then the remainder as in home (respectively). Maybe having a large root partition along with the location of the home partition makes the HDD head travel a much further distance which is physically equated to a delay in login and other actions. With such a large HDD, what would you recommend for partition schemes?
I have a 640 gb 5400rpm drive, and I've installed arch with only a huge root partition on it in the past, and had no speed issues (currently I have a 40gb root and a ~595gb home and a 5 gig swap).
Last edited by bwat47 (2012-06-24 20:56:03)

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EXTREMELY SLOW XQUERY PERFORMANCE AND SLOW DOCUMENT INSERTS

EXTREMELY SLOW XQUERY PERFORMANCE AND SLOW DOCUMENT INSERTS.
Resolution History
12-JUN-07 15:01:17 GMT
### Complete Problem Description ###
A test file is being used to do inserts into a schemaless XML DB. The file is inserted and then links are made to 4
different collection folders under /public. The inserts are pretty slow (about
15 per second and the file is small)but the xquery doesn't even complete when
there are 500 documents to query against.
The same xquery has been tested on a competitors system and it has lightening fast performance there. I know it
should likewise be fast on Oracle, but I haven't been able to figure out what
is going on except that I suspect somehow a cartesian product is the result of
the query on Oracle.
### SQLXML, XQUERY, PL/SQL syntax used ###
Here is the key plsql code that calls the DBMS_XDB procedures:
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE "XDB"."RESOURCEARRAY" AS VARRAY(500) OF VARCHAR2(256);
PROCEDURE AddOrReplaceResource(
resourceUri VARCHAR2,
resourceContents SYS.XMLTYPE,
public_collections in ResourceArray
) AS
b BOOLEAN;
privateResourceUri path_view.path%TYPE;
resource_exists EXCEPTION;
pragma exception_init(resource_exists,-31003);
BEGIN
/* Store the document in private folder */
privateResourceUri := GetPrivateResourceUri(resourceUri);
BEGIN
b := dbms_xdb.createResource(privateResourceUri, resourceContents);
EXCEPTION
WHEN resource_exists THEN
DELETE FROM resource_view WHERE equals_path(res, privateResourceUri)=1;
b := dbms_xdb.createResource(privateResourceUri, resourceContents);
END;
/* add a link in /public/<collection-name> for each collection passed in */
FOR i IN 1 .. public_collections.count LOOP
BEGIN
dbms_xdb.link(privateResourceUri,public_collections(i),resourceUri);
EXCEPTION
WHEN resource_exists THEN
dbms_xdb.deleteResource(concat(concat(public_collections(i),'/'),resourceUri));
dbms_xdb.link(privateResourceUri,public_collections(i),resourceUri);
END;
END LOOP;
COMMIT;
END;
FUNCTION GetPrivateResourceUri(
resourceUri VARCHAR2
) RETURN VARCHAR2 AS
BEGIN
return concat('/ems/docs/',REGEXP_SUBSTR(resourceUri,'[a-zA-z0-9.-]*$'));
END;
### Info for XML Querying ###
Here is the XQuery and a sample of the output follows:
declare namespace c2ns="urn:xmlns:NCC-C2IEDM";
for $cotEvent in collection("/public")/event
return
<cotEntity>
{$cotEvent}
{for $d in collection("/public")/c2ns:OpContextMembership[c2ns:Entity/c2ns:EntityIdentifier
/c2ns:EntityId=xs:string($cotEvent/@uid)]
return
$d
</cotEntity>
Sample output:
<cotEntity><event how="m-r" opex="o-" version="2" uid="XXX541113454" type="a-h-G-" stale="2007-03-05T15:36:26.000Z"
start="2007-03-
05T15:36:26.000Z" time="2007-03-05T15:36:26.000Z"><point ce="" le="" lat="5.19098483230079" lon="-5.333597827082126"
hae="0.0"/><de
tail><track course="26.0" speed="9.26"/></detail></event></cotEntity>

19-JUN-07 04:34:27 GMT
UPDATE
=======
Hi Arnold,
you wrote -
Please use Sun JDK 1.5 java to perform the test case.Right now I have -
$ which java
/usr/bin/java
$ java -version
java version "1.4.2"
gcj (GCC) 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-3)
sorry as I told you before I am not very knowledgeable in Java. Can you tell me what setting
s I need to change to make use of Sun JDK 1.5. Please note I am testing on Linux
. Do I need to test this on a SUN box? Can it not be modify to run on Linux?
Thanks,
Rakesh
STATUS
=======
@CUS -- Waiting for requested information

Macbook pro getting extremely slow in performance

hey guys, my mid 2012 macbook pro , i5, 4gb , 500hdd is getting **** slow in performance it takes a whooping 40 seconds to boot . i use FCPX , motion 5, after effects , lightroom on an daily basis for editing media.. somtimes it takes almost 3 mins to copy a 2 Gb of Full hd videos from flash memory. is there anything i can do to imporve my overall performace?

hey guys, my mid 2012 macbook pro , i5, 4gb , 500hdd is getting **** slow in performance it takes a whooping 40 seconds to boot . i use FCPX , motion 5, after effects , lightroom on an daily basis for editing media.. somtimes it takes almost 3 mins to copy a 2 Gb of Full hd videos from flash memory. is there anything i can do to imporve my overall performace?

Slow hdd performance

Ok I did some research and still can't figure out why writing/reading speed is so slow in practice
hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 1012 MB in 2.00 seconds = 506.11 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 336 MB in 3.01 seconds = 111.58 MB/sec
With dd I get ~10 MB/s (dd if=/dev/zero of=/test bs=100M count=10)
Internally copy from mc 5-6 MB/s
I did multiple tests
What is going on here?
hdparm -I /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: ST31000520AS
Serial Number: 5VX0WRYD
Firmware Revision: CC32
Transport: Serial
Standards:
Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0029)
Supported: 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 8
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 1953525168
Logical/Physical Sector size: 512 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 953869 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 1000204 MBytes (1000 GB)
cache/buffer size = unknown
Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5900
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
Advanced power management level: 192
Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Advanced Power Management feature set
Power-Up In Standby feature set
SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
SET_MAX security extension
* Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
* 64-bit World wide name
Write-Read-Verify feature set
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Phy event counters
Device-initiated interface power management
* Software settings preservation
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT Long Sector Access (AC1)
* SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
188min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 188min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 5000c500250e4711
NAA : 5
IEEE OUI : 000c50
Unique ID : 0250e4711
Checksum: correct
smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [i686-linux-3.2.13-1-ARCH] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, [url]http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net[/url]
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Barracuda LP
Device Model: ST31000520AS
Serial Number: 5VX0WRYD
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 0250e4711
Firmware Version: CC32
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1,00 TB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 4
Local Time is: Fri Mar 30 00:45:54 2012 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 623) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x73) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
No Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 219) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x103f) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 119 099 006 Pre-fail Always - 216824470
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 096 096 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 526
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 3
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 077 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 58496816
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 084 084 000 Old_age Always - 14481
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 037 020 Old_age Always - 265
183 Runtime_Bad_Block 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 098 000 Old_age Always - 8590065682
189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 070 054 045 Old_age Always - 30 (Min/Max 18/31)
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 030 046 000 Old_age Always - 30 (0 16 0 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 039 021 000 Old_age Always - 216824470
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 199 000 Old_age Always - 9
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 152454159153810
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 3670022033
242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 448914133
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 14007 -
# 2 Extended offline Interrupted (host reset) 00% 13651 -
# 3 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 8256 -
# 4 Short offline Completed without error 00% 310 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
cat /etc/fstab
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/sr0 /mnt/cd iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fl auto user,noauto 0 0
UUID=934647db-14d1-4641-820c-e42c0f63c0e5 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/mapper/lvm-home /home ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2
/dev/mapper/lvm-root / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/mapper/lvm-swap swap swap defaults 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec,size=1536M 0 0
/dev/mapper/data /mnt/data ext4 acl,user_xattr,noatime 0 2
dmesg | grep ata
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 000000001f5d7000 - 000000001f5d9000 (ACPI data)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 000000001f600000 - 000000001f608000 (ACPI data)
[ 0.000000] Memory: 481496k/515072k available (3766k kernel code, 31608k reserved, 1441k data, 524k init, 0k highmem)
[ 0.000000] .data : 0xc04ad9d5 - 0xc06160c0 (1441 kB)
[ 14.174799] Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 1112k
[ 14.661110] libata version 3.00 loaded.
[ 14.684788] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xffe40000 port 0xffe40100 irq 45
[ 14.684809] ata2: DUMMY
[ 14.684826] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xffe40000 port 0xffe40200 irq 45
[ 14.684842] ata4: DUMMY
[ 14.685022] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: version 2.13
[ 14.685081] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: PCI INT A -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[ 14.685243] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: setting latency timer to 64
[ 14.699846] scsi4 : ata_piix
[ 14.705173] scsi5 : ata_piix
[ 14.715618] ata5: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xf100 irq 14
[ 14.715642] ata6: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xf108 irq 15
[ 15.006827] ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[ 15.008016] ata1.00: ATA-8: ST31000520AS, CC32, max UDMA/133
[ 15.008034] ata1.00: 1953525168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
[ 15.009380] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 15.013441] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[ 40.720777] EXT4-fs (dm-1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[ 59.246412] EXT4-fs (dm-3): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[ 59.339759] EXT4-fs (dm-4): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: acl,user_xattr
EDIT: Replaced quote with code - ngoonee
EDIT: Ok, sorry - miskoala
Last edited by miskoala (2012-03-30 08:18:09)

I booted this drive from another computer (Asrock M3A770DE mobo) and works fine, speed with dd was ~100MB/s
I also update bios on my first computer with Intel D945GSEJT (there is selected AHCI mode) still the same transfers with dd (~10Mb/s)
I have no idea what to do with it now
EDIT:
More tests with other hdd (Samsung HD502IJ), dd on mounted NTFS partition:
Intel D945GSEJT booted from Archlinux iso:
hdparm: ~75 MB/s
dd: ~10 MB/s
Intel D945GSEJT booted from Archlinux iso, HDD connected to PCI SATA controller (Promise 378):
hdparm: ~60 MB/s
dd: ~10 MB/s
Asrock M3A770DE booted from Archlinux iso:
hdparm: ~87 MB/s
dd: ~76 MB/s
Asrock M3A770DE booted from Archlinux iso, HDD connected to PCI SATA controller (Promise 378):
hdparm: ~81MB/s
dd: ~76 MB/s
What is broken on D945GSEJT?
Last edited by miskoala (2012-03-30 13:47:23)

Vista Business Extremely Slow HDD Speed

Just installed Vista Business on a brand new MacBook Pro 15". Installation went completely without hiccup, all hardware appears to work fine.
However, I am trying to transfer 30Gb of data to the internal HDD. I have tried transfers over the network (Gigabit), from an external USB 2.0 HDD, and internally from the Mac partition to the Boot Camp partition. Under no circumstances can I achieve a transfer rate higher than 1.5 Mb /sec.
Any ideas? All updates have been installed...

t3kka wrote:Reading around on some other threads I found regarding a slow login to tty I noticed some folks state that a large root partition could be the problem. My HDD is 500GB with the root, var, swap, and home partitions being ~80GB, ~20GB, ~6GB, and then the remainder as in home (respectively). Maybe having a large root partition along with the location of the home partition makes the HDD head travel a much further distance which is physically equated to a delay in login and other actions. With such a large HDD, what would you recommend for partition schemes?
I have a 640 gb 5400rpm drive, and I've installed arch with only a huge root partition on it in the past, and had no speed issues (currently I have a 40gb root and a ~595gb home and a 5 gig swap).
Last edited by bwat47 (2012-06-24 20:56:03)

Extremely Slow Network Performance with 10.5.8

Let me start off by saying I don't use my mac mini much at all but when I do, the network is incredibly slow and unbearable. Half of the pages don't load, ipsw files for the iPhone take 20-30 minutes (with 15mbps interwebs)
My network setup:
1. Modem (provided by ISP)
2. 2 TB Time Capsule WPA2 security default settings.
3. Airport Connection
Now I would be for using 'openDNS' for a resolution but it didn't really improve the issue. Sure it sped up the internet on that machine, but I'm not willing to use a third party DNS when my MacbookPro connecting to the same exact network, doesn't experience this.
I have removed the hosts file for airport, remove the network connection, reset SMC, to no avail.
If anybody has any insight as to why my mac mini is the only device with poor performance, that would be greatly appreciated.

I shouldn't have to use another user.
Okay. It should also work with your current user but it's not.
For testing purposes and to narrow down the problem, try another user and see if it works.
If it works, it is something with the current user.
If it doesn't work, it is something with the system.

Extremely Slow Wireless Performance on an Extended Network

Hi
My network setup consists of a Time Capsule (early 2009) wireless network that is being extended by an AirPort Extreme (early 2007) which has an Xbox 360 connected to it via ethernet.
1) Everything seems fine on the MacBook Pro (wireless N) when connected to the Time Capsule and I can get the full speed of my broadband connection (8Mbit). However, when the MacBook Pro connects to the AirPort Extreme, in another room, my broadband speed drops to around 2Mbit, however the transfer rate usually remains unchanged (between 78 and 130).
I know it has nothing to do with the positioning of the base stations, as when I turn off the AirPort Extreme, the MacBook Pro, in the same room, has the full internet speed.
This is really annoying as I rely on my Xbox 360 for heavy video streaming and content downloads.
2) When the Xbox 360 is downloading something, any internet served by the AirPort Extreme becomes totally unusable and dead.
3) Additionally, the AirPort Extreme sometimes insists on extending the 5Ghz network from the Time Capsule which only provides a rate of around 10.
Please help me!
Thanks

To insure that your AirPort Extreme is extending the 2.4 GHz band from your Time Capsule:
Open AirPort Utility, select the Time Capsule and click Manual Setup
Click the Wireless tab below the row of icons
Click the Wireless Options button
Assign a separate name for your 5 GHz network. (By default, AirPort Utility will automatically add "5 GHz" to your network name.)
Click Update to save your changes
Then check to make sure that your AirPort Extreme is setup to extend the 2.4 GHz band from the Time Capsule, not the "5 GHz" network.
If you perform a Factory Default Reset on the Time Capsule, it will not affect your stored backups on the Time Capsule disk.

Slow HDD performance in XP SP2 with MS-6380

Hi all,
I have this HDD throughput problem in XP:
First, I ran hdd testing utilities within a boot CD and I got:
35Mb/s, (75Mb/s burst)
After a clean fresh Windows XP (SP2 integrated) install, I got:
(with hd_speed and hdtach for windows, first applications that ran after install)
34Mb/s, 34Mb/s burst ( !?!)
After installing sound and modem drivers, antivirus and firewall... and a few reboots, I got:
(with the same testing apps)
20Mb/s, 20Mb/s burst (!?!)
Specs:
MSI-6380 KT3 (without RAID) KT333 Via chipset
(all IDE related settings in BIOS are ON)
AMB 1800+
1x512 RAM @333
Maxtor HDD 60Gb ATA133
Onboard Via Sound
GeForce 5200XT AGP (running @ 4x, mobo max AGP rate)
IEEE PCI Card
Windows XP-SP2
DMA enabled
I also work with a NT4 PC and I get:
(with the same testing apps)
30Mb/s, 67Mb/s burst
Specs:
Mboard with i815E
intel ide controller
onboard gfx
iPentiumIII 933
2x256 RAM @ 133
Seagate 20Gb ATA100
Windows NT4-SP6, DMA enabled
Can somebody tell me what's wrong with this picture?
Will 4in1 drivers do any good? How about miniport ide drivers?
Can't I get more of a 'better' system???

Hello again and thanx for your replies..,
Well, I don't think XP's Service Pack 2 might be the cause of it.
I was having the same problem with a previous WinXP installation (SP1a, I guess)
And yes, I defrag everything...
The interesting thing is, SOMETIMES, I get the 35-37Mb/s with George Breese's hd_speed. And on other times, I get 20-21Mb/s...
I don't know if it has something to with some services within SP2 (I got some good info at Black Viper's)
I'll tweak a little more with those and see what I can come up with.
I'll post results, if possible.
Btw, I have 2 partitions in XP:
'drive' C: with 5Gb (NTFS, 8Bytes/cluster) for SO, apps
'drive' D: with 55Gb (NTFS, 8Bytes/cluster) for media
See ya!

Extremely Slow Report Performance

I have a report that I have been using for several years with no problems until recently. I made a change to the stored procedure that the report uses, and now the report will take several hours to run; whereas previously it took less than a minute. The change to the proc was very minor and involved only changing some verbage on a static text field that the procedure returned. The output of the procedure was not changed, and I can run the procedure using SQL management studio in less than 2 seconds. However, as I said Crystal Report takes several hours to run this same stored procedure. I even tried creating a brand new report and using this procedure as the datasource, and it did the same thing. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? I'm using Crystal Reports 2008 with sp2.

The verify database takes just as long as running the report itself, so it doesn't help. The portion of the proc that was changed was as follows:
This:
set @bodyBlock2 =
'NOTA: En caso de no tener la(s) devolucion(es) solicitada(s), favor de ' +
'anotar en la presente el motivo por el cual no se est entregando la ' +
'devolucion.
Para cualquier duda y/o aclaracion al respecto, quedo de usted en la linea ' +
'de Help Desk
58 64 17 07 or 01 800 509 17 84, lada sin costo.'
Was changed to this:
set @bodyBlock2 =
'NOTA: En caso de no tener la(s) devolucion(es) solicitada(s), favor de ' +
'anotar en la presente el motivo por el cual no se est entregando la ' +
'devolucion.
Para cualquier duda, aclaración o reporte ponemos a su disposición los siguientes
teléfonos 01800 509 1784, 01800 581 2490, lada sin costo o al (55) 5864 1700
extensiones 1757, 1802, 1811, 1791, 1707, 1726, 1762, 1767, 1781, 1792, 1820 o 1838'

Extremely slow after reboot, reformat, Tiger-reinstall. Need new HDD?

Got the late 2006 white intel iMac 17" in feb 2007. It started a couple of weeks back from now with choppy flash video playback. So I tried removing flash plugin, reinstalling and then removing and reinstalling browsers. Did not work. So I decided to clean the apps a bit and used AppDelete or something like it to remove apps and files associated with them. Removed some widgets, parts of Adobe CS3 and other. Bad move apparently...
After an extremely long reboot everything was changed; it was as if I had 2 mb of RAM instead of my 2 GB (upgraded). I guess I had too many programs up and running at the same time, but something was wrong. Windows XP (Bootcamped) was functional but shared the problem; seemingly low RAM or extremely slow HDD. For example; I could easily play COD4 (lowest settings, but that was from before. Still topping the servers tho ;)), but switching between software was a pain.
So I formatted the mac partition and reinstalled Tiger. An install that took two full days ( ! ). This didn't solve the problem; as soon as the HDD need to write or read it freezes. Scrolling web-pages, installing software or buffering flash video takes obscene amounts of time.
Anyway, I formatted the intire drive including the "Win"-side, re-reinstalled Tiger (took me an entire week of coming home from work, inserting next disk, coming home from work the next day, finding an kernel panic (gray screen, restart text?), restarting) and here I am now. I have switched back to my initial 1 GB RAM just to see if the "new" RAM was the problem but it is still the same.
So my conclusion is that the HDD is failing. But the hardware check on the Tiger-disks came back OK. And how can the harddrive have been "damaged" from removing the wrong software and then rebooting? Or is this all just coincidence?
What should I do? I talked to the guys at the local Mac support center and they agreed on the HDD and said I should buy a new one and let them install it (for 168$, then I'd buy HDD elsewere for 100$ maybe).
Do YOU agree? Is there something I should try before putting out a lot of money? Smells like something for the warranty, but even for swedish laws it's too late (it's one year here).

With no insight whatsoever from the manufacturer of the copier, I reformatted the internal hard disk. Life is back to normal! Apparently these HDs get fragged just like any other, so a periodic reformatting may take care of sluggish performance. Either that or the original formatting of the internal HD wasn't "compatible" with OS X.

Macbook Air Extremely Slow Wireless

Hello All,
Got my brand new MB-Air and from the get-go noticed extremely slow wireless performance. I did a bit of digging and here is what I found.
The MB-Air works OK with cheap (consumer) wireless APs, however when used in conjunction with the commercial APs most of which use the Atheros chipset the performance is horrible. I found that when connecting to APs that use Atheros' commercial chipset, the MB-Air connects with 802.11 G specs instead of N even when the signal metrics are excellent such as -39 RSSI.
Moreover, even With the 802.11 G connection at 54Mbps the performance is both sluggish and latent. Small file transfers have a 50/50 shot at working and large file transfers seem to die reliably. Albeit this could be an issue with Apple's implementation of SMB / Samba which is rather poor.
I have tried to turn off Bluetooth to see if my experience is different. We'll see.
I would be interested in feedback from people who are also experiencing the same poor wireless performance to learn the chipset of the AP they are having issues with.
By-the-way -- I will take a fix, if someone has come up with one. However my guess is that this is an engineering issue that Apple has to fix.
BP

Sitting side-by-side, my MBA was averaging less than 1 Mb/s on downloads, and my MBP more than 9 Mb/s. The MBP was fully ten times faster. As you can imagine, viewing videos was a ragged, unpleasant experience on the MBA.
I'm using an early wireless-N Belkin router, so it didn't show up on airport utility, thus i couldn't change channels there as proposed on this thread. But to isolate the problem, at my brother's suggestion i took both computers to a Starbucks, and observed the two computers downloading there at equal speeds. So clearly the problem wasn't with my MBA, but my router.
I went to Belkin's website to figure out how to change channels on the router, and checked for firmware updates. There was one, so i figured I'd do that before attacking the "changing channels" task. I upgraded the firmware, and with that simple fix my MBA is happily zipping along now with >9 Mb/s downloads, same as the MBP. More than TEN times faster than before. My iPhone download speeds increased more than tenfold, too.
My advice, if you're having wireless problems with your MBA: First make sure your router's running the latest firmware.

Extremely slow performance with NEW hdd

Ok guys, this is pretty frustrating. Today I bought 2 new external hdd's, same manufacturer, same model. One of them seems to work great, but the other one.. well look at this:
/dev/sdk1:
Timing buffered disk reads: 96 MB in 3.04 seconds = 31.53 MB/sec
bash-3.2# hdparm -t /dev/sdj1
/dev/sdj1:
Timing buffered disk reads: 4 MB in 4.30 seconds = 951.52 kB/sec
As you can see, my sdj is extremely slow - what could possibly be wrong here?

fukawi2 wrote:Is DMA enabled in the BIOS?
Probably - If it wasn't the other drive shouldnt behave like normal.
By the way:
bash-3.2# dmesg | grep -i ata.*dma
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f100 irq 22
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f180 irq 22
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f200 irq 22
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f280 irq 22
ata1.00: ATA-8: SAMSUNG HD501LJ, CR100-11, max UDMA7
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata2.00: ATA-7: ST3320820AS, 3.AAD, max UDMA/133
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata3.00: ATA-8: SAMSUNG HD501LJ, CR100-12, max UDMA7
ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133
bash-3.2#

My HDD is extremly slow.

I've a Western Digital 1TB HDD
Information
S/N: [Deleted]
MDL: WD1003FBYX-01Y7B1
I've chekced the drive specification on the WD website.
According to the document, drive speed is 128MB/s (Host to/from drive)
Data transfer rate(max)
Buffer to host 3GB/s
Host to/from drive (sustained) 128MB/s
As of today, My HDD is extremly slow.
I want to know that writing speed bandwidth for defective HDD.
(e.g. Writing speed (40 ~ 70M/s) is defective)
Thanks.

Welcome to the Community.
What are your system specs? Actual performance is affected by your hardware configuration.

Extremely slow performance with Radeon HD 7870

Hi,
I am using a number of Adobe programs on my new Windows 8 64 bit system, with 16 gigs of ram, an Intel Core i5 2.67ghz, and AMD Radeon HD 7870 2 gig. All the programs (including After Effects and Illustrator) work very well with the exception of Photoshop CS6 64 bit, which has extremely slow performance with Use Graphics Processor enabled in my preferences (which Photoshop selects by default). If I turn off Use Graphics Processor, the slow performance vanishes. If I change Drawing Mode to Basic, there might be a slightly detectable improvement over Normal and Advanced, but it's still horribly slow. The refresh rate seems to be just a few frames per second. Everything is slow: brushes, zooming, panning, everything.
I've tried changing the settings I've seen suggested elsewhere: I switched Cache levels to 2, history states to 10, and tile size to 128k. No effect. Photoshop is currently at the default of using 60% of available ram. Efficiency has remained at 100% throughout all my tests. Also, this slow performance has affected me from the moment I installed Photoshop; it didn't crop up after previous good performance. The problem exists regardless of the size or number of documents I have open. Performance is still terrible even when I create a 500 x 500 pixel blank new canvas and try a simple task like drawing with the brush.
Photoshop is fully up to date, and so are my graphics drivers (Catalyst version 13.1). Any help would be greatly appreciated; at the moment performance is so bad in Photoshop that it's unusable with graphics acceleration enabled. Thanks in advance for replying.
Photoshop System Info:
Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00) x64
Operating System: Windows 8 64-bit
Version: 6.2
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:14, Stepping:5 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2
Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2665 MHz
Built-in memory: 16379 MB
Free memory: 13443 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 14697 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 60 %
Image tile size: 128K
Image cache levels: 2
OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.
OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced
OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.
OpenCL Version: 1.2 AMD-APP (1084.4)
OpenGL Version: 3.0
Video Rect Texture Size: 16384
OpenGL Memory: 2048 MB
Video Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Video Card Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Display: 1
Display Bounds: top=0, left=0, bottom=1080, right=1920
Video Card Number: 2
Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Driver Version:
Driver Date:
Video Card Driver: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.d ll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 x 4294967296 colors
Video Card Caption: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Video Card Memory: 2048 MB
Video Card Number: 1
Video Card: Microsoft Basic Render Driver
Driver Version: 9.12.0.0
Driver Date: 20121219000000.000000-000
Video Card Driver:
Video Mode:
Video Card Caption: Microsoft Basic Render Driver
Video Card Memory: 0 MB
Serial number: 90970078453021833509
Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\
Temporary file path: C:\Users\RAFFAE~1\AppData\Local\Temp\
Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled
Scratch volume(s):
C:\, 931.5G, 534.8G free
Required Plug-ins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Required\
Primary Plug-ins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Plug-ins\
Additional Plug-ins folder: not set
Installed components:
   ACE.dll   ACE 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768
   adbeape.dll   Adobe APE 2012/01/25-10:04:55   66.1025012   66.1025012
   AdobeLinguistic.dll   Adobe Linguisitc Library   6.0.0
   AdobeOwl.dll   Adobe Owl 2012/09/10-12:31:21   5.0.4   79.517869
   AdobePDFL.dll   PDFL 2011/12/12-16:12:37   66.419471   66.419471
   AdobePIP.dll   Adobe Product Improvement Program   7.0.0.1686
   AdobeXMP.dll   Adobe XMP Core 2012/02/06-14:56:27   66.145661   66.145661
   AdobeXMPFiles.dll   Adobe XMP Files 2012/02/06-14:56:27   66.145661   66.145661
   AdobeXMPScript.dll   Adobe XMP Script 2012/02/06-14:56:27   66.145661   66.145661
   adobe_caps.dll   Adobe CAPS   6,0,29,0
   AGM.dll   AGM 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768
   ahclient.dll    AdobeHelp Dynamic Link Library   1,7,0,56
   aif_core.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   aif_ocl.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   aif_ogl.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   amtlib.dll   AMTLib (64 Bit)   6.0.0.75 (BuildVersion: 6.0; BuildDate: Mon Jan 16 2012 18:00:00)   1.000000
   ARE.dll   ARE 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768
   AXE8SharedExpat.dll   AXE8SharedExpat 2011/12/16-15:10:49   66.26830   66.26830
   AXEDOMCore.dll   AXEDOMCore 2011/12/16-15:10:49   66.26830   66.26830
   Bib.dll   BIB 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768
   BIBUtils.dll   BIBUtils 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768
   boost_date_time.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   boost_signals.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   boost_system.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   boost_threads.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   cg.dll   NVIDIA Cg Runtime   3.0.00007
   cgGL.dll   NVIDIA Cg Runtime   3.0.00007
   CIT.dll   Adobe CIT   2.1.0.20577   2.1.0.20577
   CoolType.dll   CoolType 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768
   data_flow.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   dvaaudiodevice.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   dvacore.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   dvamarshal.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   dvamediatypes.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   dvaplayer.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   dvatransport.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   dvaunittesting.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   dynamiclink.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   ExtendScript.dll   ExtendScript 2011/12/14-15:08:46   66.490082   66.490082
   FileInfo.dll   Adobe XMP FileInfo 2012/01/17-15:11:19   66.145433   66.145433
   filter_graph.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   hydra_filters.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   icucnv40.dll   International Components for Unicode 2011/11/15-16:30:22    Build gtlib_3.0.16615
   icudt40.dll   International Components for Unicode 2011/11/15-16:30:22    Build gtlib_3.0.16615
   image_compiler.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   image_flow.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   image_runtime.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293
   JP2KLib.dll   JP2KLib 2011/12/12-16:12:37   66.236923   66.236923
   libifcoremd.dll   Intel(r) Visual Fortran Compiler   10.0 (Update A)
   libmmd.dll   Intel(r) C Compiler, Intel(r) C++ Compiler, Intel(r) Fortran Compiler   12.0
   LogSession.dll   LogSession   2.1.2.1681
   mediacoreif.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0
   MPS.dll   MPS 2012/02/03-10:33:13   66.495174   66.495174
   msvcm80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6910
   msvcm90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1
   msvcp100.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010   10.00.40219.1
   msvcp80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6910
   msvcp90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1
   msvcr100.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010   10.00.40219.1
   msvcr80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6910
   msvcr90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1
   pdfsettings.dll   Adobe PDFSettings   1.04
   Photoshop.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6
   Plugin.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6
   PlugPlug.dll   Adobe(R) CSXS PlugPlug Standard Dll (64 bit)   3.0.0.383
   PSArt.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6
   PSViews.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6
   SCCore.dll   ScCore 2011/12/14-15:08:46   66.490082   66.490082
   ScriptUIFlex.dll   ScriptUIFlex 2011/12/14-15:08:46   66.490082   66.490082
   svml_dispmd.dll   Intel(r) C Compiler, Intel(r) C++ Compiler, Intel(r) Fortran Compiler   12.0
   tbb.dll   Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks for Windows   3, 0, 2010, 0406
   tbbmalloc.dll   Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks for Windows   3, 0, 2010, 0406
   updaternotifications.dll   Adobe Updater Notifications Library   6.0.0.24 (BuildVersion: 1.0; BuildDate: BUILDDATETIME)   6.0.0.24
   WRServices.dll   WRServices Friday January 27 2012 13:22:12   Build 0.17112   0.17112
Required plug-ins:
   3D Studio 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Accented Edges 13.0
   Adaptive Wide Angle 13.0
   Angled Strokes 13.0
   Average 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Bas Relief 13.0
   BMP 13.0
   Camera Raw 7.3
   Chalk & Charcoal 13.0
   Charcoal 13.0
   Chrome 13.0
   Cineon 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Clouds 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Collada 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Color Halftone 13.0
   Colored Pencil 13.0
   CompuServe GIF 13.0
   Conté Crayon 13.0
   Craquelure 13.0
   Crop and Straighten Photos 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Crop and Straighten Photos Filter 13.0
   Crosshatch 13.0
   Crystallize 13.0
   Cutout 13.0
   Dark Strokes 13.0
   De-Interlace 13.0
   Dicom 13.0
   Difference Clouds 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Diffuse Glow 13.0
   Displace 13.0
   Dry Brush 13.0
   Eazel Acquire 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Embed Watermark 4.0
   Entropy 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Extrude 13.0
   FastCore Routines 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Fibers 13.0
   Film Grain 13.0
   Filter Gallery 13.0
   Flash 3D 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Fresco 13.0
   Glass 13.0
   Glowing Edges 13.0
   Google Earth 4 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Grain 13.0
   Graphic Pen 13.0
   Halftone Pattern 13.0
   HDRMergeUI 13.0
   IFF Format 13.0
   Ink Outlines 13.0
   JPEG 2000 13.0
   Kurtosis 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Lens Blur 13.0
   Lens Correction 13.0
   Lens Flare 13.0
   Liquify 13.0
   Matlab Operation 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Maximum 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Mean 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Measurement Core 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Median 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Mezzotint 13.0
   Minimum 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   MMXCore Routines 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Mosaic Tiles 13.0
   Multiprocessor Support 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Neon Glow 13.0
   Note Paper 13.0
   NTSC Colors 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Ocean Ripple 13.0
   Oil Paint 13.0
   OpenEXR 13.0
   Paint Daubs 13.0
   Palette Knife 13.0
   Patchwork 13.0
   Paths to Illustrator 13.0
   PCX 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Photocopy 13.0
   Photoshop 3D Engine 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Picture Package Filter 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Pinch 13.0
   Pixar 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Plaster 13.0
   Plastic Wrap 13.0
   PNG 13.0
   Pointillize 13.0
   Polar Coordinates 13.0
   Portable Bit Map 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Poster Edges 13.0
   Radial Blur 13.0
   Radiance 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Range 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Read Watermark 4.0
   Reticulation 13.0
   Ripple 13.0
   Rough Pastels 13.0
   Save for Web 13.0
   ScriptingSupport 13.1.2
   Shear 13.0
   Skewness 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Smart Blur 13.0
   Smudge Stick 13.0
   Solarize 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Spatter 13.0
   Spherize 13.0
   Sponge 13.0
   Sprayed Strokes 13.0
   Stained Glass 13.0
   Stamp 13.0
   Standard Deviation 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   STL 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Sumi-e 13.0
   Summation 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Targa 13.0
   Texturizer 13.0
   Tiles 13.0
   Torn Edges 13.0
   Twirl 13.0
   Underpainting 13.0
   Vanishing Point 13.0
   Variance 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Variations 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Water Paper 13.0
   Watercolor 13.0
   Wave 13.0
   Wavefront|OBJ 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   WIA Support 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   Wind 13.0
   Wireless Bitmap 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)
   ZigZag 13.0
Optional and third party plug-ins:
   DAZ Studio 3D Bridge 12.0
   DazUpdateScene 12.0
Plug-ins that failed to load: NONE
Flash:
   Mini Bridge
   Kuler
Installed TWAIN devices: NONE

Great news!
I followed your suggestion, Noel, and uninstalled my drivers with the Catalyst Uninstall Utility (which I hadn't used before), rebooted, reinstalled Catalyst 13.2 Beta 7, rebooted, deleted the PS Prefs, started PS, and now the performance is radically improved!
It baffles me why I would need to do a clean driver uninstall in a new system environment that has only ever had this video card, and is only a few months old, but that action seems to be what's improved the situation. Note that because I deleted the PS preferences, the good performance now occurs with the default Use Graphics Processor enabled, and Drawing Mode set to Advanced (with every feature in the Advanced dialog checked except 30bit display).
Having no reference point, I can't tell for sure if performance is as good as it theoretically ought to be for my system specs, but using the standard 13px brush is only slightly laggy behind the cursor, even if I become reckless and squiggle on the canvas violently. It wasn't just sluggish response before: Photoshop seemed to be in pain trying to draw the line segments as it laboured to catch up to the cursor. That is pretty much gone now.
Much more tellingly, zooming and panning the canvas is like it ought to be, responsive and clean, more or less like it was for me in CS4 with my old Nvidia 9600GT. The poor performance with zooming and panning was the most worrying aspect of the issue. It's a great relief to see these working more properly now.
I have to confess I'm a little embarrassed to have drug you through all this hassle only to discover that something as rudimentary as properly cleaning out the drivers would be the apparent solution. I never would have imagined that doing that, with such a new and stable system, would make any difference, since I don't have a legacy of older drivers dotting my hard drive. In any event, I'm really grateful that you guys took the time to try to help me.
In the interest of completeness, here's the relevant portion of my system info after doing the reinstall steps I mentioned above:
Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00) x64
Operating System: Windows 8 64-bit
Version: 6.2
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:14, Stepping:5 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2
Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2665 MHz
Built-in memory: 16379 MB
Free memory: 13680 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 14695 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 60 %
Image tile size: 1024K
Image cache levels: 4
OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.
OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced
OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.
OpenCL Version: 3.0
OpenGL Version: 3.0
Video Rect Texture Size: 16384
OpenGL Memory: 2048 MB
Video Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Video Card Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Display: 1
Display Bounds: top=0, left=0, bottom=1080, right=1920
Video Card Number: 2
Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Driver Version:
Driver Date:
Video Card Driver: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.d ll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 x 4294967296 colors
Video Card Caption: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Video Card Memory: 2048 MB
Video Card Number: 1
Video Card: Microsoft Basic Render Driver
Driver Version: 12.100.17.0
Driver Date: 20130226000000.000000-000
Video Card Driver:
Video Mode:
Video Card Caption: Microsoft Basic Render Driver
Video Card Memory: 0 MB
As you can see, the Microsoft Basic Render Driver still appears as a Video Card in the list. This presumably has something to do with Windows 8, and I really don't know if its presence here is still a sign that my card is not being used to its optimal capability. I have a hunch that the slight lag that I am still experiencing with the brush when Use Graphics Processor is on -- totally absent with the acceleration turned off -- implies that Photoshop is still unable to take maximum advantage of my card. I would assume that the brush tool should be more responsive with acceleration on than off, in a rig without any issues, but that's just assumption on my part. If you turn off Use Graphics Processor on your systems, is the brush tool more or less responsive?
But again, panning the canvas with the hand tool is now extremely responsive, without any screen tearing or visible lag, and that's a massive improvement over the total meltdown of performance I was suffering from before.
Thanks again very much for your help. I'm grateful to all of you who took the time to chime in.

Extremely slow HDD performance on Acer 7551

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