Possible problem with HDD

Hello to all,

I have recently experienced a strange problem and would like to read opinion from you guys. It's about possible HDD failure. I have recently bought used computer that was previously used as an office computer. It was pretty cheap and I bought for my parents since they don't do much than usual (e-mail, surfing news, youtube and similar). The motherboard is Fujitsu Siemens and the HDD is SATA 500 GB Seagate 7200 rpm, 2 GB RAM, CPU INtel Pentium 4 3.6 GHz. After few weeks of using they started complain that computer works slow. I have checked for viruses and it is clean. I have discovered that the speed of copy large file from partition to the another is in average 1 MB/sec which is rather slow. On the forums I have found that it is either problem with motherboard or with HDD. That's why I have downloaded Seagate Seatools for windows and performed different kinds of tests, all were successful. I have used then one older HDD (IDE) 80 GB made image of C partition of old HDD and restored partition on new (IDE) HDD.
I copied the same file (1 GB) again and this time average speed was higher than 15 MB/sec (sometimes even higher that 20 MB/s). The computer works significantly faster. So somehow the problem is with SATA 500 GB disk. I wonder what could it be since scan disk tool in windows 7 returns no error and seagate (manufacturer) checking tools also say that the HDD is OK.

What could that be. The only thing I didn't change is SATA cable but I doubt that problem can be cause by 15 cm of cable.

Do you have any possible explanation what could be the cause for this behavior. I have made a back of all data from the HDD,
It is interesting that older HDD (IDE) works much faster than newer SATA. I have newer used computer in the beginning but parents told me it worked faster in the beginning.

Thank you.

I would try another SATA cable. You would be surprised what a bad cable can do even a very short one.

Ok, I'll buy a new SATA cable and try it. But I cannot understand what could be wrong. Everything works jut slower. How bad cable can cause this? Thereis no in the computer source of noise or EMC disturbance that can cause this.
Furthermore, I have used existing IDE cable that was used to connect DVD drive to put HDD as master and it worked really faster. Anyway the next test is with the cable.

The problem was not in SATA cable. The HDD is just slow. So I have made a complete backup. I'm going to replace the drive soon. It is interesting that this drive passed all tests.
Thank you for the support.

If your parents only uses for trivial tasks, buy a 120G SSD. Win 7 will take about 50G so you will have 70G for data.
You have no idea what a SSD can do for an old computer.
I have one of these PNY CS1311 2.5 SSD7CS1311-120-RB - Newegg.com
So far, so good.

If all they ever do is internet-related activities, then it is likely that lots of scripts are running on the websites they frequent, slowing things to a crawl. This happened to me. My solution was to use Firefox as my browser, with the NoScript add-on installed. If you decide to go this route, it will take some time to fine-tune NoScript so as to allow all desired activity, while blocking the scripts which slow things down.

Another option would be to install the Opera browser, and turn on ad-blocking. Although not as fast as FireFox with NoScript, Opera with ad-blocking is almost as fast, and there is nothing to fine tune, so it is very easy to use.

You should increase your memory to at least 4 GB of RAM. I would go up to 8 GB if the computer allows that much. 2 GB of RAM is definitely causing slowness in this computer.

As Megahertz07 said, an SSD will also help. But in my experience, the additional memory will help more than the SSD, so if you had to choose between additional memory and an SSD, go with the memory.

I doubt that your hard drive is the cause of the problem. You can test this by doing only non-internet activities for a while, and see if that is also slow. My guess is that only the internet-related activities will be slow.

M$ states that Win 7 should have at least 1G of memory for 32 bits and 2G for 64 bits.
From my experience, I recommend as minimal, 2G of memory for 32 bits and 4G for 64 bits.

If the computer has Win 7 32 bits it can only deal with 3.2 G. In this case (32 bits) it doesn't make sense to use more than 4 G (3.2 for Windows and .8G for graphics)

Thank you guys for the suggestions. Even though SSD are not really that expensive anymore, I doubt I'll buy a new SSD for my parents. It will most likely stay this HDD IDE for now and in the future.
The computer motherboard is more than 8 years old and I seriously doubt it can recognize SSD drive. I know that SSD instead of HDD can boost speed, but I'm not sure whether the drive would be recognized in BIOS.

The suggestion regarding the SSD insted of HDD is really interesting and I would probably open a new Thread regarding it.

Thank you all once again.

By the point of view from BIOS, there is no difference between a SATA HDD and a SATA SSD.
A SSD is seen by BIOS as a SATA disk.