Constant Disk Writes WinXP

[booberandpuzz]

I've searched the internet high and low, found many many posts regarding
constant disk writes when the system is otherwise idle, but have found
exactly zero cases where the thread culminated in a resolution.

I have a WinXP Home SP3v.3311 built on Q6600 Quad, 4GB Ram, Gigabyte
P35-DS3L, EVGA 8800GT. My system drive is a WD 150GB 10krpm and it is being
abused by the system. The really weird thing is that WinInternals
ProcessMonitor doesn't seem to report this continuous activity. I enabled
the column I/O Delta Writes in PE and and sort the processes by this
parameter, but very little info is ever displayed under this column when
idle. Perhaps 0.5s is far too long a refresh cycle, an eternity on a 2.4GHz
system.

The nature of my problem is revealed by FILEMON:

10:29:07 AM System:4 IRP_MJ_WRITE* C:\pagefile.sys SUCCESS Offset: 41611264
Length: 65536
10:29:13 AM System:4 IRP_MJ_WRITE* C:\$Mft SUCCESS Offset: 45522944 Length:
4096
10:29:13 AM System:4 IRP_MJ_WRITE* C:\$LogFile SUCCESS Offset: 27033600
Length: 36864
10:29:14 AM System:4 IRP_MJ_WRITE* C:\$Directory SUCCESS Offset: 8192
Length: 4096
10:29:14 AM System:4 IRP_MJ_WRITE* C:\$BitMap SUCCESS Offset: 5976064
Length: 4096

These typical lines were clipped out of a voluminous FILEMON log. These
writes happen on the average of 3-4 times per second, constantly.

A typical sequence as reported by DISKMON is six writes to $LogFile in the
sequence 96-8-8-8-8-96 bytes.

My WHSTray application was just as guilty and I've reduced the reported
thrashing somewhat by disabling it, but the level of constant writes is still
unacceptable. Odd thing is WHSTray does not have that effect on my other two
XP machines, one XP Pro SP2, the other a Toshiba laptop with XP Home SP3v3264

I've also disabled Terminal Services so lsass.exe is not running.

The other important detail I should include is that this is a newly built
machine, having migrated the system volume and did repair install from
slipstreamed SP2 cd. The old machine has become my WHS.

I have up-to-date AVGFree reporting no threats. Spybot S&D the same.
Disabling either or both has no effect.

Thanks in advance for anyone willing and able to help. I'm stumped.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You can avoid the disk writes with ReadyBoost enabled on a thumb drive.

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[booberandpuzz]

You can avoid the disk writes with ReadyBoost enabled on a thumb drive.
Was this helpful?

I'm doubtful. See:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=150615
http://discuss.extremetech.com/forums/1/1004375571/ShowThread.aspx

ReadyBoost appears to be a designed part of Vista, not XP, although people
are using it on XP with mixed results. I need help solving this PROBLEM in
XP that
I am clearly not alone in. However, I do have a 4GB Cruzer that I will
attempt this with and report the results.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You could also simply set the thumb drive to be the Virtual Memory,
exclusively.

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[booberandpuzz]

You could also simply set the thumb drive to be the Virtual Memory,
exclusively.

I have 4GB of RAM. Could I not set up a RAM drive instead? If I did it
that way, could the RAM drive use memory above the 3.5GB limit (which might
really make it worth expanding my RAM to 6 or 8GB)?

 

[booberandpuzz]

You could also simply set the thumb drive to be the Virtual Memory, exclusively.

I just rebooted the machine with the 4GB Cruzer set to hold the pagefile.
The only concern is that this is a U3-enabled device that shows up in the
system like a CD and the removable thumb drive is only mounted after I've
entered a password. Sounds like I should instead use a new, generic (non-U3)
thumb drive and force the drive letter.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

I don't know, but it seems to me your Ram Drive would be within the 3.5.
I'm not even sure we are really addressing the issue, here. Why you are
getting such a series of VM writes is not known by me. It really sounds like
some variation on a memory leak. Maybe looking into known memory leak
problems associated with things you use would do something.

About the 'non-U3' drive. Anything you can boot from is a device within this
idea framework.

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[booberandpuzz]

I just rebooted the machine with the 4GB Cruzer set to hold the pagefile.
The only concern is that this is a U3-enabled device that shows up in the
system like a CD and the removable thumb drive is only mounted after I've
entered a password. Sounds like I should instead use a new, generic (non-U3)
thumb drive and force the drive letter.

Well forcing the pagefile onto the thumb drive did not have any effect. The
pagefile is now located on my L: drive which seems to have worked. However
$Bitmap $Logfile $Mft & $Directory remain on the C: drive where FILEMON still
reports nearly continuous writes.

Like cancer, it seems to know now that I'm trying to defeat it and it is
writing like mad. WHSTrayApp.exe is writing about twice as much as the
System:4 process.