Windows 7 Constant Disk Activity

[Ziplock9000]

One of the many reasons I skipped Vista was because of the constant Disk activity when idle. It appears that the same problem exists with Windows 7. I've tried the usual suspects like turning of indexing etc, but the problem it still exists. I'm 99% sure it's not the hardware, because I can play most of the latest games out there and run big apps like VS2008, SQL Server etc..

Windows 7 Ultimate, Beta Build 7000 (inc all current windows updates)
Pentium D 2.8Ghz Dual Core
2Gb Ram
400Gb SATA HD (Raid0 across 2x200Gb drives)
ATI 2600 Hd Pro
Nova HD S2
Nova T 500

Thanks.

 

[jimbo45]

Mine (and most other people's as well) seem to work just fine

However apart from disabling Indexing try these (shouldn't really need to but it will certainly fix the Disk problem)

1) Stop and Disable Superfetch (go into control panel===>administrative services===>services)

2) Stop and disable Ready Boost -- this is usually the mother of all Disk thrashing problems when they occur. Note Ready Boost doesn't even appear in build 7022.

Now also ensure that you haven't got too many applications running at once and you actually do have at least 1GB RAM.

Finally make sure that your "C" drive is not 95% full or similar.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[montyuk]

load up task manager, on the performance tab, load resource monitor, then check the disk tab and see which processes are making the most read writes..

im thinking its your antivirus program..

 

[Ziplock9000]

Thanks,

I'll try the superfetch and readyboost ideas you mentioned and hopefully it will help.

It's actually a clean install with all updates, I've not even got a virus scanner installed yet.
As stated I have 2GB, and disc access occurs even when there are no foreground applications running.

 

[Fbiff]

I have noticed the same thing. I have disabled the anti virus, and stopped indexing and it still continues. I got process monitor from sys internals and had a look.

Windows media player network sharing service was accessing the disk so I stopped that. Using Norton that came with the computer. On an XP I have Mcafee, and the disk was not this active.

But 2 processes continue to use the disk repeatedly:

explorer.exe is using a slideshow.ini, but I have no slide show setup !! how to stop this??

And the peer network services is using the disk, why? there is no other computer on the network at this time??

Did not notice this stuff going on with XP, its very annoying, when the computer is idle the disk should be idle!! Over time this adds up to a lot of disk usage, reduce disk life??

 

[gimpydingo]

I noticed this as well looking under the resource monitor. SHSTAT or SVChost seem to be accessing quite a bit. Seems to be 10 megabytes/sec read/write. I have indexing off and some other services, let me try superfetch - I see that still running in the task manager.

 

[mpomroy]

Same Problem

I have Windows 7 on fresh install and new laptop. It looks to me like the System process is the one accessing the disk.

Has anyone made any progress?

Thanks,

 

[thielto]

Hi, I would also be interested in a solution to this problem. I run Windows 7 and recently is has become abnormally slow, as there is constant hard disk activity. A virus scan with AVG did not product any results. On closer look, the Resource Monitor showed that the Sytem process is writing and reading at 2-6 MB per sec from my hard disk, name like the c:\Pagefile.sys.

Now, my page file size is 1533 MB (the recommended size) - I have 1GB memory on a 2.4 Ghz HP laptop.

Does anyone have any piece of advice?

 

[reghakr]

You've all received very good choices for a solution.

gimpydingo, i would suggest you uninstall Mcafee and get a good free alternative such as Avira, AVG,and or Malware Bytes.

 

[IMADman]

Windows Media player

I used the performance monitor and I see a gob of activity on mp3 files.... over and over again. I moved all my MP3s into my music folder and so now I think WMP is indexing them all or something.