Why Does Windows Seven Constantly Churn My Hard Disk ?

self ^ | 8/3/15 | jimt

[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 ?

[markomalley]

First:

THE LAST Windows update you will need.

Or, in your case, perhaps you'd do better with:

Note: I run Mint 17.1 on my desktop (where I'm typing now) and Peppermint on an old EeePC netbook. No problems with either...and they both had really good, clean installs.

You can try creating a live usb stick (using the Lili utility) if you wanted to try a "smoke test" before actually committing to an install.

---

As to the subject of your post, as others have said, 1GB is nowhere near enough RAM. Not even close. I would think that 4GB would be the minimum I'd want for Windows 7. A 250GB SSD ought to be more than enough storage, so there is likely something else going on, particularly with a 30GB pagefile (????).

Frankly, RAM is cheap. I would bet that your laptop is using DDR2 memory...most laptops I've seen have two memory slots; you could get 4GB of DDR2 RAM for $60 (two 2GB modules). Note: the link to RAM is provided as an example: the speed may or may not be correct for your specific system.

[Red Steel]

Open up the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del), click the Performance tab, then click on Resource Monitor, then click on the disk tab.

Do this. Then kill kill kill offending progs... ;-0)

[Boogieman]

I think the RAM is your culprit. 1 GB is very low for Windows 7, you really should have around 4 GB. So to make up the difference, I suspect Windows is just using your hard drive constantly for virtual memory.

[jimt]

Again, thanks for the help. I bought this PC exactly as it is now with Windows 7 "starter". Nothing has changed in several years.

I refuse to DOWNGRADE my equipment with any new MS OS. If the 1 GB memory I have ain't good enough to run Win 7 it should never have been on here in the first place.

Again, thanks to all.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

CCleaner

I remember CCleaner back when the first C stood for something.

[pa_dweller]

I had this same behavior (HDD activity indicator flashes about once a second) on the previous hardware running XP and it's continued on the new hardware running Win7. There are file types offered to be excluded from indexing and I've unchecked those. I've looked around and cannot find a 'shutoff indexing' switch. Where should I look for this?

One of the other posts mentioned checking processes. Which processes of the 37 running should I look for?

TIA

[SgtHooper]

You are way under the min chip RAM. Install a min of 4GB—the more, the better.

[Fred Hayek]

Might need a defrag.

[Secret Agent Man]

those three plus spybot search and destroy.

[minnesota_bound]

You should get Adam to fix your computer.
Scroll halfway down : )
http://www.cowart.info/blog/2008_08_01_rabidfun_archive.html

Try “What ‘s my computer doing?” program. It shows what is going on at the moment. You click on the program running to find more information about it then click on link for Known problems. http://www.itsth.com/en/produkte/Whats-my-computer-doing.php

[boxlunch]

Bkmk

[rikkir]

I also wanna give a shout out to PC Matic, and their Shieldware. $10 per computer per year, and the owner does commercials with his handgun on his hip, and with one of his female employees holding an AR-15.

[trebb]

Mine periodically does some extra activity but it’s likely due to some of the auto updates for “critical” items and some indexing.

[dayglored]

A little help for a fellow FReeper ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

[Still Thinking]

What if Balls-her has fantasies ABOUT users? Where do those fit into the hierarchy of priority?

[Paladin2]

I always feel so used.....and dirty.

My history of microprocessors started when there was a team of two to build the Control System using hardware available (and sensors with speed, accuracy and variability we could get someone to supply) , software that could be constructed to get the necessary real time tasks completed on time and with sufficient accuracy under all possible ranges of inputs.

[Abby4116]

My netbook (Samsung) has a max of 2 gig ram. It came preloaded with win 7 starter and worked ok for most things. I have a 3 user upgrade of win 7 that had one use left so I told it to upgrade to Home Premium (you only have to put the key code in and it downloads upgrade from the web).

Actually it runs much faster with the full Win 7 than it did with the starter and for a $200 at the time computer it does all that you could want it to do. I do think that second gig of ram made a lot of difference.

[markomalley]

My netbook (Samsung) has a max of 2 gig ram.

I think that's all that the Atom processors (used with Netbooks of that era) could deal with.

Actually it runs much faster with the full Win 7 than it did with the starter and for a $200 at the time computer it does all that you could want it to do

I used my Asus on XP until XP died. Then, rather than messing with Windows 7, I decided to just move it over to Linux Peppermint. Never regretted it.

But if Win 7 works good for you, more power to you!

[matthew fuller]

Thank you for this information.

[matthew fuller]

I just tried to install CCleaner. It appears to be mandatory that I install Google Chrome. I don’t anything to do with Google. I got to a screen where I had to install Chrome or quit. Was that correct?