Unknown constant disk activity slows Vista

[Paul H]

Well, it looks like I have to restart my Vista Home Premium again. The disk
meter frequently goes to and stays at 90% or greater, and anything I attempt
to do takes minutes, not the already unreasonable seconds like it did until
last Wednesday. My old XP Pro is lightning fast compared to this. A
restart fixes the problem for an hour or so. Task manager does not show any
program other than those showing on the bottom of the screen. I run
Ad-Aware frequently (it always finds 20 or so) and I'm using Avast to
prevent any virus. Help, anybody?

 

[...winston]

If malware and virus free, start by looking at Msconfig(Start/Run/Msconfig/startup) and the Windows search index(it may take some time to finish).
..winston

: Well, it looks like I have to restart my Vista Home Premium again. The disk
: meter frequently goes to and stays at 90% or greater, and anything I attempt
: to do takes minutes, not the already unreasonable seconds like it did until
: last Wednesday. My old XP Pro is lightning fast compared to this. A
: restart fixes the problem for an hour or so. Task manager does not show any
: program other than those showing on the bottom of the screen. I run
: Ad-Aware frequently (it always finds 20 or so) and I'm using Avast to
: prevent any virus. Help, anybody?
:

 

[Tiberius]

Microsoft wants to convert your hard disk into dust.. don't worry!

Its improvements!!! LOL

Vista has several SERVICES that make the disk thrash like it has drank a
swimming pool full of coffee.

What are these services? Indexing (windows search),
Ready Boost, and defrag that is now automatic and has a stupid gui.

You can turn off indexing (windows search) and readyboost from
Control Panel> Administrative tools> services

disable those 2.

Windows still will be able to search the disk.. it just will not index it...

Make sure you organize your stuff and you wont have a problem.

Indexing is stupid, and a dying technology. MS did one more mistake by
including it,
turning it on by default, and not having a GUI way that is very apparent to
turn it off.

 

[Paul H]

Thx, "Tiberius". I turned off search and ready boost. I look forward to
better performance.

======================

Microsoft wants to convert your hard disk into dust.. don't worry!

Its improvements!!! LOL

Vista has several SERVICES that make the disk thrash like it has drank a
swimming pool full of coffee.

What are these services? Indexing (windows search),
Ready Boost, and defrag that is now automatic and has a stupid gui.

You can turn off indexing (windows search) and readyboost from
Control Panel> Administrative tools> services

disable those 2.

Windows still will be able to search the disk.. it just will not index it...

Make sure you organize your stuff and you wont have a problem.

Indexing is stupid, and a dying technology. MS did one more mistake by
including it,
turning it on by default, and not having a GUI way that is very apparent to
turn it off.

 

[Rock]

Well, it looks like I have to restart my Vista Home Premium again. The
disk
meter frequently goes to and stays at 90% or greater, and anything I
attempt
to do takes minutes, not the already unreasonable seconds like it did
until
last Wednesday. My old XP Pro is lightning fast compared to this. A
restart fixes the problem for an hour or so. Task manager does not show
any
program other than those showing on the bottom of the screen. I run
Ad-Aware frequently (it always finds 20 or so) and I'm using Avast to
prevent any virus. Help, anybody?

Run the Reliability and Performance monitor to get an idea of what files are
being accessed. From Start type in Reliability. Right click on it when it
appears at the top left. Choose run as administrator. Once it opens expand
the disk section to see what files are being accessed. The PID corresponds
to the process that opens those files.

Note I have the ReadyBoost process running and it doesn't cause any disk
access. I have no idea where Tiberius is getting that from. Now if you are
in fact using ReadyBoost with a thumb drive or SD card, then yes that the
ReadyBoost cache file that is created on those drives will be accessed, but
it's not continuous like you are experiencing, and it certainly doesn't have
the impact you are seeing.

I also have indexing service running and again don't see the same effect you
are.

At any rate the first step is to find out what actually is writing to the
disk.

 

[Lang Murphy]

Well, it looks like I have to restart my Vista Home Premium again. The
disk
meter frequently goes to and stays at 90% or greater, and anything I
attempt
to do takes minutes, not the already unreasonable seconds like it did
until
last Wednesday. My old XP Pro is lightning fast compared to this. A
restart fixes the problem for an hour or so. Task manager does not show
any
program other than those showing on the bottom of the screen. I run
Ad-Aware frequently (it always finds 20 or so) and I'm using Avast to
prevent any virus. Help, anybody?

Start | Run | perfmon

Check the disk section... sort on read or write (read first) and see what's
pounding your HD.

If there's nothing painfully apparent, then... -maybe- your box has
something illicit sucking your resources.

Lang

 

[Paul H]

Rock, I did as Tiberius suggested, and not only did my system get extremely
fast, but some Windows Mail performance problems went away! So it's too
late to determine what disk activity was taking place. I would have tried
what you suggested, and I appreciate yours and Lang's help. Thx. Paul

===================

Well, it looks like I have to restart my Vista Home Premium again. The
disk
meter frequently goes to and stays at 90% or greater, and anything I
attempt
to do takes minutes, not the already unreasonable seconds like it did
until
last Wednesday. My old XP Pro is lightning fast compared to this. A
restart fixes the problem for an hour or so. Task manager does not show
any
program other than those showing on the bottom of the screen. I run
Ad-Aware frequently (it always finds 20 or so) and I'm using Avast to
prevent any virus. Help, anybody?

Run the Reliability and Performance monitor to get an idea of what files are
being accessed. From Start type in Reliability. Right click on it when it
appears at the top left. Choose run as administrator. Once it opens expand
the disk section to see what files are being accessed. The PID corresponds
to the process that opens those files.

Note I have the ReadyBoost process running and it doesn't cause any disk
access. I have no idea where Tiberius is getting that from. Now if you are
in fact using ReadyBoost with a thumb drive or SD card, then yes that the
ReadyBoost cache file that is created on those drives will be accessed, but
it's not continuous like you are experiencing, and it certainly doesn't have
the impact you are seeing.

I also have indexing service running and again don't see the same effect you
are.

At any rate the first step is to find out what actually is writing to the
disk.

 

[Nick Savoiu]

Hi,

I've removed avast, disabled the two services below but my HD LED still
blinks every second even when I have no programs runnning.

And from time to time explorer.exe seems to access just about every .eml
file in my Mail folder (>1GB of it) looking at some OECustomProperty!

<vent>I've had it with this crap! I want control of my computer and I'm
about to throw this out the window!</vent>

Nick