excessive hard disk activity

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
A

alohascott

Distinguished
Jul 10, 2011
425
0
18,790
I use the resource monitor to check my systems performance.

This is something I have done for years but over the last few weeks I am seeing excessive hard disk activity in all my pc's that are running windows 7 or windows 8. I have never seen this amount of disk activity except for a short period after updating net runtime, while the net runtime optimization service runs.

in order to see this excessive hard disk activity you will need to
Take a look at the resource monitor.
It can give you more information than the task manager.
It is found under the performance section of the task manager, and opens a new window.

What I am seeing is a large amount of listings showing the system (process id 4) writing and reading from dll and font files.

More than 50 files are being accessed
This is an unusually large amount of files being accessed.

sometimes it may be a different process that is accessing the files but it is always the same types of files being accessed.
dll and font files.

I have disabled
windows defender
windows search
super fetch
windows font cache

I have also scanned all my drives numerous times with many different antivirus and malware programs and checked for root kits and installed a firewall service.

again just to emphasize this is happening on all my pc running windows 7 or windows 8.

I have seen this also happening on most other computers that are not mine that I have had a chance to check out.

It is not a normal thing as I have been watching my disk activity for years.

any help would greatly be appreciated.
thanks in advance
scott
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
TenPc

TenPc

Honorable
Jul 11, 2012
2,471
1
11,960
Windows Defender is only suited to Vista and Windows 8, it should be disabled for Windows 7 permanently.

Excessive hard drive activity may infer a drive that is near to its capacity, is nearing to a fault in the sectors to which, if not SSD, should be defragged, use Defraggler for SSD.

Browsers use a separate browser window process for each tab (a tab is just another word for a window) that is opened, in IE9, if that tab is closed, the process is still running until the browser itself is closed, not sure about other brands of browsers.

Disable indexing on all drives except the OS drive. If the OS drive is SSD then indexing can be disabled.
Shut down the PC when not in use, don't use Hibernation it requires 10% of the total volume of the hdd and it is reserved space.
Disable Sleep and hibernation in Power Options, only allow manual activation of Sleep, or standby mode (you have to navigate to the buttons to enable it).
If you have CCleaner installed, uninstall it, it monitors your system as a background service.
Check the Services in Adminstration Tools > Computer Management > Services and Applications > Services
You can enable, disable, or stop servies that you feel should not be running. Don't get too clever, you might actually disable the OS, just disable features that look like they should not be running.

From within certain program options you can disable their Startup option.
Things like Skype, Itunes, RealPlayer etc don't really need to be there until you need to use them.
Don't have files or folders on the desktop area, only shortcuts to those files and folders, this will increase your boot up time.

[strike]How many hdd's and partitions do you have in just one PC?[/strike]

Edit -
You need to have Windows 7 on a separate hdd to Windows 8.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
MidnightDistort

MidnightDistort

Distinguished
May 11, 2012
887
0
19,160
I know that Chrome does use a bit of hard drive usage. If possible hit print screen on your keyboard and paste it into a program like paint. That way we can see just how much activity is going on with your hard disk. Page files tend to take quite a bit of hard drive activity, depending on how much RAM you have left. And CCleaner shouldn't take up too much activity either. I have it installed, shouldn't be much more than 1% highest active time (actually i don't see CCleaner in the hard drive activity list).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

ccfields6

Honorable
Aug 10, 2013
1
0
10,510
I've found that Skype continually accesses my laptop's hdd - little bits of activity every 5-10 seconds. Not a healthy thing for my hdd. All the other disk hogs eventually quiet down, not Skype.
Microsoft shot themselves in the foot when they bought skype for $3 bil and when they closed Messenger.
I guess some whiz kid convinced a grey hair in mgmt these changes would benefit someone.
Turn off skype and use another chat app (Google, Viber)




 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A

alohascott

Distinguished
Jul 10, 2011
425
0
18,790
Aloha
I did figure a way to actually copy the info down from the resource monitor using control a and control c and control v to paste it into excel.
So it is really the system process with process id number 4 that is the one that bothers me.
At the moment it is scanning this folder.
C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\
and scanning files like this.
acpipmi.inf_x86_neutral_71194ee3f26255a7\acpipmi.PNF
according to excel about 2000 to 3000 files at one time.
other days it will be dll files or ttf files.
it not just my machine.
I see it on other machines at my friends houses and on machines that are brought here.
Can anyone tell me how to really find out what processes are really behind process id #4.
It seems to be a catch all process.
scott
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom