Posted on 08/03/2015 3:18:07 PM PDT by jimt
Why does my cheapo Dell Inspiron netbook have continuous hard disk activity when idle ? Not only during actual usage, but ALL the time - like now ?
I've been an MS OS user since DOS 3.3. But with MS's current massive invasion of privacy (Windows 10) and seeing constant, non-stop disk activity when there's no reason for it, I don't trust Windows 7 either. What gives ?
How much memory and how big is the page file?
Probably not enough RAM so it’s always playing with the page file. Either that or you got a virus.
start the task manager and see what is running and using CPU/Disk
Turn off indexing
make sure you have latest updates- windows 7 without updates had some serious issues with that
Do I have to go back to Windows XP ? Or maybe Windows 2000 ?
AND check for viruses
EVERYONE HERE should have:
Avast Antivirus
MalwareBytes anti malware
CCleaner
all are free for home use
I installed a 250G SSD. After my daughter backed up her iPhone, it ran out of memory. The page file was over 30g's.
HOLY CRAP.
Most common answer is that the HDD needs defragmenting and possibly has disk errors. This can be made worse if you have a nearly full HDD. Check your task scheduler from the control panel administration link to see if you have things running during heavy activity, such as file indexing.
Never mind.
Sounds like a lousy os that doesnt optimize itself for hardware limitations.
Software can always abuse the hsrdware without hardly trying. The user should be the focus, not Stve Ballmers fantasies.
Doesn’t sound that way to me. Sounds like his disk needs housekeeping.
I don’t think it’s Windows 7. I’d suspect spyware first and foremost. When that crap starts reporting everything you do back to the spyware’s homebase, it can really slow down your machine.
Just for reference, I’m running Windows 7 HOme Premium on a one year old PC with 4GB RAM, 1TB harddrive, 3.4GHz CPU. Nothing special really, and the harddrive never churns away except for a few seconds when I start up some app.
Bkmk
This PC has 1 GB of memory - it’s a cheapo.
I have the latest version of Kaspersky - whatever the heck it is for 2015.
I’ve been messing with pagefiles, etc., for many years. NOTHING has changed since purchase. I regularly run “cleanup” and defrag, like in the old days.
Kaspersky has given me warnings which I’ve always heeded, Shall I wipe this HD and install an antique (and clean) os ?
Firefox is a notorious disc churner. Look at the reads and writes on the Firefox process.
Turn off your automatic Windows update. Go only manual.
The os should be smart enough to manage the disk as it becomes full.
Wife’s does the same thing. Turned off indexing, has 4G of memory, still churns. Has sufficient space. Just blinking and flashing, flashing and blinking, blinking, flashing, blinking, flashing, flashing....I CANT TAKE THIS
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