Periods of extremely high disk activity, which make computer unusable

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John Cunningham

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Aug 17, 2013
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Hi All,

I have a lenovo x230t laptop with an i5 processor running windows 8 pro 64-bit.

For some unknown reason the computer randomly starts high amounts of disk activity, which brings the computer to a complete standstill. I have run the lenovo hard drive diagnostics and no issues were detected.

The full specs are as follows:

> Mainboard : LENOVO 3437B98

> Chipset : Intel Ivy Bridge

> Processor : Intel Core i5 3320M @ 2600 MHz

> Physical Memory : 8192 MB (2 x 4096 DDR3-SDRAM )

> Video Card : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000

> Hard Disk : Seagate ST320LT007-9ZV142 (320GB)

> Monitor Type : LP125WH2-SLB3 - 13 inches

> Network Card : Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection

> Network Card : Intel WiFi Link 6000 Series

> Operating System : Windows 8 Pro Professional 6.02.9200 (64-bit)

Here is what task manager looks like during a period of high activity:
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Thanks in Advance!
 
Solution
JefferyD90
Its one of 2 things. Either the Hard Drive is failing, or you have a software issue. If it was my computer I would do a clean install of Windows and find out. After you do the clean install if its still happening we know its not software related so it has to be the drive itself.
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JefferyD90

JefferyD90

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Jun 1, 2012
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Its one of 2 things. Either the Hard Drive is failing, or you have a software issue. If it was my computer I would do a clean install of Windows and find out. After you do the clean install if its still happening we know its not software related so it has to be the drive itself.
 
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Solution
J

John Cunningham

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Aug 17, 2013
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Hi Jeffrey,

Unfortunately that is easier said than done. It is a school supplied laptop, with a custom image (programs etc) installed. As a I don't have a copy of the image to apply, reformatting isn't really an option.

Are there any other steps I could take to narrow down the problem, short of doing a reformat?

Thanks once again,

John
 
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JefferyD90

JefferyD90

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Let the comptuer set for a whole night, dont do ANYTHING to it. Just let it sit there. According to your screen shots its got high latency with low transfer speeds. Which means it is simply seeking for stuff. And it seems to just be the system itself doing it, so it might be indexing something or possibly doing its own thing. If that doesnt help do 1 defrag using the built in tool, and do a disk clean up and stuff like that.

Also answer me this, has it gradually got like this or did it just poof all of a sudden happen?
 
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John Cunningham

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Aug 17, 2013
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It's really odd, a couple of times a week it will go into this state but if it is then rebooted or left for an hour or so it returns to normal. There seems to be no pattern to it being triggered. It has done this since I got the computer a couple of months ago, and does not seem to be increasing in frequency. It's just really annoying cause it slows the computer right down when it happens.

I have tried defragging, running disk cleanup and Lenovo's diagnostics none of which have had the slightest effect.

I don't know of any utilities except Norton 360 that would be running in the background and will watch for the cpu usuage when the problem next occurs.

Thanks,
John
 
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spooky2th

spooky2th

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Kaspersky Internet Security used to have a similar problem. When doing some scans in the background, it would take up too much cpu resources and really slow the comp down and sometimes freeze the comp. They have fixed the problem, though.

Edit:
Check the settings in Norton and see what controls you might have with scans, etc.
 
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John Cunningham

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Aug 17, 2013
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Will remove norton when I have some time and see whether it has any effect. It still seems odd the that read and write speeds in task manager drop so low and the response time becomes so high, surely norton shouldn't be causing that?

Thanks for all the ideas you've provided! Will let you know how it goes.
 
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JefferyD90

JefferyD90

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It just means nothing is being read and writen. Its just seeking it out. (sounds like either a crawler form of malware or a antivirus scan)
 
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John Cunningham

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I've run a scan with malwarebytes and norton and neither found anything other than a few cookies. Will remove norton when I have some time later in the week, and let you know how it goes.
 
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JefferyD90

JefferyD90

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There in lies your problem. You should not, under any situation, be using 2 Anti-Malware programs. They always conflict with each other. Most even tell you not to when you install them.
 
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John Cunningham

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Aug 17, 2013
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Hi,
Malwarebytes is only on-demand, there's no realtime scanning. In any case I only just installed it to run a scan of the computer before removing norton. For the past few months while this problem has being occurring norton has been the only anti-virus installed. So I doubt that is the problem.

I'll let you know how it goes, once I do get some time to remove it.

Thanks once again.
 
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JefferyD90

JefferyD90

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Doesnt matter. The damage is done now. I cant recommend anything other than a clean instal of Windows at this point. Anything short of would be a waste of time.
 
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