I have a strange thing happening- probably hardware related. I am using an
older libretto 70 and 6Gb harddrive as an MP3 player. It used to work fine.
Now, after several months not using it, it (drive access) has slowed down
significantly so
that the playback of media, streaming or MP3 is very shaky (stop-start). I
can't think of anything I did to it in that time. Playback software makes no
difference.
The strange part is, if I make the HDD do something else (almost anything
else so that it is spinning 'harder' or reading more, then the audio plays
fine. By asking the computer to do something else, it is almost as though it
wakes up the drive in some way so that it pays attention to its job. I think
this may also be happening with any type of drive access, not just media,
such as downloading etc., however I don't know how to test drive speed under
different 'loads'. It is particularly noticable with the media files as I
can hear the music stop/starting. I have done a disk check, and defrag, both
are fine. There is ample space on the drive for swapping. Any advice on this
appreciated. Thanks.