slow loading times

[numhtak]

What part of the computer controls how fast WoW loads? sometimes it is very fast, and then others it seems to take ages. And another thing is sometimes when I log out, it sits there kind of frozen and takes a good 15-20 seconds until it gets to the character selection screen.

I think thats all the info anyone would really need to know the issue, but if not, please ask and thank you for replies
GIGABYTE GA-770T-USB3 AM3 AMD 770 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX
HITACHI HDS721050CLA362 (0F10381) 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
PNY Optima 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model MD4096SD3-1333

[Deleted]

Hard drive significantly determines load times. However, first-time load (e.g. Login) is determined heavily by addons, the more you have - the worse the load times. The fact that it takes a very long time to log out makes me suspect you have too many addons that require writing their saved variables.

Do note that all mechanical hard drives have significantly worse read and write speeds at sectors above 50%. If WoW is installed 'in the back 'of the HDD, speeds may be limited as low as 50-60mb/s for sustained reads (and less than a megabyte per second for small/random)

[numhtak]

I'm only using about 100gbs of it, so I would guess that means it's not 'in the back'?
So my HDD might be the issue huh, which one would be recommended?

[Deleted]

I'm only using about 100gbs of it, so I would guess that means it's not 'in the back'?

That would be unlikely, yes. However you should still check your addons. A lot of people under-estimate just how much time even simple ones add to loading times. Many times more than the game and its elements itself.

[numhtak]

I use very little addons, just x-perl, atlasloot, recount, omen, auctionator, and tidy plates. I clear recount often so it doesn't have much memory sitting around, and it shows me having 11 Mb of addons. I guess I don't 'think' thats a lot?

[Saithes]

Also check for fragmentation.. That can raise load times significantly depending on how bad it is. (Aka Defrag)

[numhtak]

I will defrag it, see if that helps. Thanks for the replies

---------- Post added 2011-07-09 at 07:56 PM ----------

I guess my next question is, when I run the defrag on C drive, it goes through a bunch of steps, analyzing/consolidating, but never ends up defragging anything and once it stops doing that, it shows last run 7/9/2011 2:44 PM (0% fragmented).