Seemingly Endless Disk Activity

[goombawaho]

Did battle with a slow running Vista machine today - 32bit with 2GB RAM. I did everything I could think of to speed it up and it did improve, but I just kept seeing quite a bit of disk activity even though not very much was actually running on the PC as determined by Process Explorer.

I
scanned for malware using MBAM and combofix (clean)
reduced startup items using autoruns
cleaned out temp files and registry with CCleaner
turned off windows search (indexing) and defender services
Replaced Mcafee with M.S.E.
Disabled HP CUE service

The only thing I didn't do was disable Superfetch and that's because I've seen people argue both for and against disabling it in the name of performance and disk thrashing.

Any more suggestions or advice on disabling superfetch???

 

[xit]

Had one similar a while back & it is a tough one to run down, I tried everything I could think of to no avail but I noticed when I unplugged the ethernet cable it completely stopped but I could not find the culprit. Good luck

xit

 

[DrB0b]

Defrag?

"You don't know what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???

 

[goombawaho]

Defrag was set to run automatically. I don't think it was doing it at the time when I was working on it. It seemed to happen from boot time until maybe 10 minutes after boot up.

So that's why I was wondering if it was Superfetch. I forgot to mention that I tested the hard drive and the memory, so all I have to blame is Vista being uncooperative. Imagine that.

 

[linney]

Does Vista's built-in Reliability and Performance Monitor/ Resource Overview/ Disk tool, show you which process is using the hard drive?

What is it like from Safe Mode?

 

[goombawaho]

Can't touch the computer right now, so I can't answer the first question. I may be able to check that again soon though.

Safe Mode was better but not stellar. Maybe just a combination of a slower hard drive and a not-fantastic motherboard???

It was a Dell E521 by the way with a Samsung drive.

 

[BadBigBen]

I assume you already have turned off the INDEXING and got rid of Windows Search 4.0?

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Yeah, I turned Windows Search off immediately which is what I think you mean by Indexing (in XP). Windows Search 4.0 was NOT even installed.

 

[BadBigBen]

correct, Windows Search = indexing...

I'll just throw in a few things to check:

Defrag scheduled? (after some research, one person was helped by defragging the drive to begin with)
Windows Defender? (check)
Indexing? (check)
Superfetch? (on hold)
Pagefile size/defrag?
Reduce the size of the Trashbin?
System Restore size to large?

I know some of them use drive space and thus can cause rouge drive usage...

as to the SuperFetch, you could alter the setting on how it behaves, e.g. by changing the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

0: deactivate SuperFetch
1: speed-up programs
2: speed-up boot
3: speed-up boot and programms (default setting)

PS: have you read the following article?

Beginners Guides: Stopping Vista From Thrashing Hard Disks to Death

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2262

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Yes, I did find that article the other day. Interesting. I think I'll let it ride for a few days and see what the user says and then proceed only if they are disappointed.

I know for ME, their machine is running much better than it was, but that's all relative. My 2002 Athlon XP 2400+ machine with 768MB of RAM running XP still runs better!!! A sad commentary.

 

[BadBigBen]

My 2002 Athlon XP 2400+ machine with 768MB of RAM running XP still runs better!!!

I read somewhere, where one person had an issue with Vista on an ACER Laptop running VISTA, and when they contacted ACER that they wanted their VISTA Laptop to run as fast as their Win98SE system, their response was this: "A Windows 98 computer will run faster than a Vista computer ALL DAY LONG."

;-)

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

I will end this thread with: "I don't see much Vista and that's just a good thing".

 

[BadBigBen]

and I'll second that notion...

"No VISTA for me, either..." Upgrade upgrade upgrade... ;-)



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Just a counter-point to say that I have had a Vista based Dell laptop for several years with never ( and I mean never) an issue with performance or stability.
I also have XP and W7 based units and they have been good as well..It may just be the luck of the draw ( or the fact that I keep them updated and virus free as much as possible)





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."