Windows 7 Windows 7 Slows down (almost hangs) after Harddisk activity. WHY????

A

Antoon

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Apr 30, 2010
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I'm having troubles with my system and can't figure out the cause. After a several trials with this system I started up completely from scratch.
I'm having an Asus Motherboard M2A VM HDMI, running well and installed the latest BIOS to be sure that this couldn't give me any troubles. 4 Gb CrossAir Mb. An AMD Quadcore 9550. A 1 TB Western Digital Sata HD and a Benq DVD R/W. The rest is Disabled or disconnected to be sure nothing will interfer. Even the Harddisk has been backuped, formatted, unpartitioned and completely wiped (took more than 10 hours) and formatted again.

After installation of Win7, which took about 18 minutes, without connection to the internet to disable any auto-update (with autopdate the same thing happens), everything runs well with this version of Win7 (build 7600). Then running updates and installed Microsoft Security essentials and some standard software such as Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player my system suddenly hangs for more than 5 minutes. I can't startup anything. Even not giving an CRTL+ALT DELETE activation. The only thing hapenning is that the Hard Drive lights continous lighting up. That could mean Bad Sectors or something like that but I did a check with the original Western Digital Harddrive software to check the drive but no errors are found. Even not with the extended check with the software Western Digital dlgdiag.exe.

Taking a look at Taskmanager nothing seems to be interfering. All uncommon applications are been shut down by me. All auto startup events are also been disabled besides Security essentials offcourse. All Latest update are installed. No other software running. Device Manager gives not warnings at all. Everything looks fine. But after startup and running IExplorrer for instance this system hangs again. Did a several Safe Mode Startups and that sort of thing without any result. Also repair from a Repair Disk (DVD). I can't figure it out.

Running out of options I connected a 20 gb old IDE HD as test HD to this system after formatting the 1tb HD again and disabled it. Installed Win7 at this 20gb HD with Office 2007 and some other software and the strange thing is that it runs well on this small 20gb HD. Super fast system.

WHY,WHY,WHY? I did everything was was possible but I can't install this Win7 on this 1TB HD. I'm busy with it for more than one week and can't figure it out.
Why seems everything well and do I get this weird problem some minutes after startup.
System Hangs continous, waiting for something and goes further when HD activity stops.

Any clou?
 
Solution
A
Yesterday evening. Changed the Hard Disk with 1 TB (type wd10eads) with a 500 GB (type WD5000aaKS) and having no problems at all.
I will get myself a new Hard disk and this will probably solve this issue.

So, Conlusion is that the Bios coundn't cope witth this 1 tb hard drive or that the Ultra DMA CRC errors in data (24) as found with HD Tune were so important that Win7 and Win XP didn't want to go further with this HD as being to insecure to work with.
Nothing else found.

Thanks for your support. It brought me to this solution eventually but it was hard to find.
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How large did you say you made the Win 7 partition?

Have you checked for any chipset drivers for your system. Maybe the Win 7 included ones are not working well...

You say Task Manager does not show any utility taking up CPU time if you look at Processes and show all users. Then click the CPU column to set the highest use first.

In Task Manager, go to the Performance tab and see what the Processors are doing and check the memory. You might also start the resource monitor and watch it.

Some utilities take up time doing things like scanning. MSE normally doesn't cause problems on my system, so maybe it is something else.

What type of WD hard drive is it, Green or black or blue...?

What type of DVD is it, SATA or IDE?
 
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System Hangs, Trying to find a solution in Resource Monitor

Thanks for the reply.

First partition has been set back to 150 GB. The second one for about 350gb and the last one for the rest of about 500 GB.
The DVD is a IDE but no disk in it. I don´t think that this could give any problems.

The chipsettings are been overlooked but I can´t see anything weird because most of them are been set automatically. I do saw the S.M.A.R.T. setting as Disableded but that´s because of the update of the BIOS (Standard Disabled). I´m now monitoring it with the free software CPU/Z if I can find something over there.

In Taskmanager (showing all processes for all users), noting weird when system hangs. Only Process Idle 99% and Taskmgr.exe of course.

Now I'm looking in the Recouse Monitor to find something over there. It will take a while before I can come up with a conclusion. It runs now in the background. If anything happens I will try to end the process with could be responsable for it. If seems a needle in a haystack but I will find it this way.

Oh, By the way, I'm having a wd10eads green 1 tb Western Digital Hard Disk. As said before, nothing found of bad sectors or anything and by now only 18 gb used. The rest is empty.

I have to find a solution for this before going further because if I can´t install Win 7 properly on this system It should be XP instead which is much easier and flexible to configure and which I´m more familiar with over all those years.
 
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If the drive was running excessively, my first thought would be it was writing to a page file or virtual memory, not sure which. Make sure you check what memory you have now to see if it is all working.

Think about updating your chipset drivers with ones from Asus if you haven't done that. Looks like a beta is available from 2009 which does seem a little strange it would still be showing as beta if it was posted in July of 2009

The other thing I would think about would be the hard drive itself. I have a Green drive in my external backup drive, but have never used on for my primary system. Perhaps its design is causing some delays, but I have no information that might point to this. Or perhaps the drive is bad. Even though it might be new, it could still have problems.

There are some settings in Device Manager you might play with, but yours is probably already on the default so it might not help, but open Device Manager and go to the drive properties and the policies tab. Check or uncheck the caching.

While in Device Manager, check the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers for the drive and make sure it is set to use Ultra DMA under the Advanced Settings tab of one of the entries.
 
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Probably a Harddisk issue

I'm getting fustrated about this because it took me more than a week. Until now without any solution. This morning I did format the complete HD again and installed Win XP on it. To be sure it's not a Win7 issue.
When installing I noticed some uncommon Harddisk activity interruptions for some long periods. So I immediately checked my HardDisk with another utility then the one from Western Digital. I'm using the free version of HD tune.

A check reported "Ultra DMA CRC Error counts .......24...."
I did try another SATA cable but after startup the same warnings were poping up.
One thing is for sure. This one isn't working properly.
I still have full guarantee on it. So, back to the shop with it.

I don't know what this warning means or if I can fix it. Probably not.
One thing was strange. When installing this Win7 on a 20gb drive everything runs a should. But installing this same Win7 software on the 1 tb HD it hangs. Same BIOS off course and Memory check also. Even Pagfile.sys setting checked.
With these in mind it could be an Harddrive issue. But I couldn't get a finger behind it. These DMA CRC errors (not given in the Western Digital Test Software) are not normal. Changing the harddrive will probably solve it.

I will let you know what the outcome is of it and thanks for your support.
 
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Yesterday evening. Changed the Hard Disk with 1 TB (type wd10eads) with a 500 GB (type WD5000aaKS) and having no problems at all.
I will get myself a new Hard disk and this will probably solve this issue.

So, Conlusion is that the Bios coundn't cope witth this 1 tb hard drive or that the Ultra DMA CRC errors in data (24) as found with HD Tune were so important that Win7 and Win XP didn't want to go further with this HD as being to insecure to work with.
Nothing else found.

Thanks for your support. It brought me to this solution eventually but it was hard to find.
 
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Solution
Chkdsk (Chkdsk.exe) is a command-line tool that checks volumes for problems. The tool then tries to repair any that it finds. For example, Chkdsk can repair problems related to bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors. To use Chkdsk, you must log on as an administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.

You can also run Chkdsk from My Computer or from Windows Explorer.

How to run Chkdsk

Notes
  • Chkdsk requires exclusive access to a volume when it runs. Therefore, if one or more of the files are open on the disk that you want to check, Chkdsk displays a prompt asking if you want schedule the disk check for the next time that you restart your computer.
  • Chkdsk might take a long time to run, depending on the number of files and folders, the size of the volume, disk performance, and available system resources, such as processor and memory.
  • Chkdsk might not accurately report information in read-only mode.
How to run Chkdsk at the command prompt


  1. Click Start, and then click Run.
  2. In Open, type cmd, and then press ENTER.
  3. Use one of the following procedures:
    • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, at the command prompt, type chkdsk, and then press ENTER.
    • To repair errors without scanning the volume for bad sectors, at the command prompt, type chkdsk volume:/f, and then press ENTER.

      Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message: Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
      Type Y, and then press ENTER to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.
    • To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, at the command prompt, type chkdsk volume:/r, and then press ENTER.

      Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message: Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
      Type Y, and then press ENTER to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.
How to run Chkdsk from My Computer or from Windows Explorer


  1. Double-click My Computer, and then right-click the hard disk that you want to check.
  2. Click Properties, and then click Tools.
  3. Under Error-checking, click Check Now. A dialog box that shows the Check disk options is displayed,
  4. Use one of the following procedures:
    • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
    • To repair errors without scanning the volume for bad sectors, select the Automatically fix file system errors check box, and then click Start.
    • To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start.
    Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message: The disk check could not be performed because the disk check utility needs exclusive access to some Windows files on the disk. These files can be accessed by restarting Windows. Do you want to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart the computer?
    Click Yes to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.
The following table lists the exit codes that Chkdsk reports after it has finished:
Collapse this tableExpand this table
Exit codeDescription0No errors were found. 1Errors were found and fixed. 2Disk cleanup, such as garbage collection, was performed, or cleanup was not performed because /f was not specified. 3Could not check the disk, errors could not be fixed, or errors were not fixed because /f was not specified.
 
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