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IT help needed - geek level

35 posts & 18 voices | Started 2 years ago by CaptainMainwaring | Latest reply from GrahamS

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CaptainMainwaring - Member

Every other day the laptop goes into continuous disk access, the activity light permanently on, and slows to a crawl. We are running two user accounts on the same machine and it only seems to happen to the "master" account. Have had some problems with Norton destroying itself a couple of times, so the issue might be something to do with that.

The really strange thing is that I go into the disk cleanup utility and 3-4 days after the last time I did a cleanup I am around 9GB (yes GB) of "system queued windows error reporting files" and 3GB of "hibernation file cleaner".

Any ideas? Am running an HP Pavillion dv2000 laptop with Vista Home Premium and 3GB RAM

Posted 2 years ago #
mrmichaelwright - Member

if you open task manager then go to the performance tab and open 'resource monitor' you can see which program is accessing the HDD which will give you a clue as to the problem.

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

MMW, I tried that. Saw all the disk activity but was not obvious what was causing it, unless I am not looking at it right

Posted 2 years ago #
mrmichaelwright - Member

you can choose to order the list by 'Read B/min' which will put the program using the disk most at the top. IT may just throw up a windows process but that'll give you a chance to google the problem

Posted 2 years ago #
allthepies - Member

Anti virus full scan kicking in ? Check scanning schedule.

Also check the windows event logs for reported errors.

Posted 2 years ago #
richtea - Member

quick! to the apple store!

Posted 2 years ago #
couldashouldawoulda - Member

Sometimes task manager isnt great at finding disk intensive tasks mine deosnt have a Read B/min - just total Read B). I used Anvir Task Manager free which has a disk usage graph with associated tasks.

After a bit of digging my disk hog turned out to be: Vista auto-indexer (used to speed up searches). I turned this off and things improved greatly.

As for all the errors - maybe have a look in the event log (start-control panel-administrative tools).

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

ATP, yeah wondered about that. Can't find out how to switch off Norton idle background check so I can just run in when I want. Any pointers?

Posted 2 years ago #
toys19 - Member

norton = yeuggghhh. I use avast free, have done for a couple of years, no virus's very lightweight..

Posted 2 years ago #
Olly - Member

it should be in the norton options list, run on demand only...

failing that, there is a "scheduled tasks" menu in windows iirc, you may be able to stop it using that?.

FAILING THAT!
i personally hate norton, its one of those things that permenantly screws with your computer, and wont allow you to remove it in order to keep a monopoly (or so it seems).

A program is availible called winpatrol, which, amongst many other clever things, can be set to monitor your windows processes, and then activly cancel all the requests for norton to start (for example)
also useful for other things, it can delay programs that are run on startup to prevent it getting clogged up.
ie:, run the vital ones, gives the computer time to settle, then runs the ones you want to use, waits for them, and once your working, starts to gently feed in any others.

anyhoo, its free

http://www.winpatrol.com/

and it may help with a fair few memory munching issues.

Oo, and its got a scheduled tasks editor iirc

Posted 2 years ago #
Olly - Member

removing norton - installing Avast +1!!

Posted 2 years ago #
verses - Member

I've recently switched from Avast to Windows Security Essentials.

I know there's a whole argument against trusting a Windows product to defend you against viruses that are targeting holes in Windows products, but it seems to be getting pretty good reviews and it appears to have minimal impact on the system load.

Posted 2 years ago #
retro83 - Member

Sounds like something (possibly a service) is dying over and over again. Windows writes a debug file when this happens, which it sounds like these are accumulating rapidly.

Check the event log, under applications and system. Look for reports of 'Fault Bucket' or things marked Error, these represent a crashing app. Hopefully give some clues as to what is wrong.

Hopefully ...

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

OK, thanks guys. I'll try looking at the event log and will also install Winpatrol. I pertty much agree now about Norton, but as I still have about 4 months subscription left I'm a bit reluctant to throw it away right now

Posted 2 years ago #
toys19 - Member

Just throw it away, who cares if you've paid, its a horrid resource hog..

Posted 2 years ago #
Spongebob - Member

removing norton - installing Avast +1!!

Good luck!

It took me ages to get rid of Norton completely (lots of registry tinkering etc etc etc). Even now i'm not sure if and when a Symantec app. will re-spawn from some dark corner.

The only sure fire way is a full reload.

Norton can really cripple a PC's performance.

Posted 2 years ago #
iht4 - Member

If you look in processes in task manager when at a crawl - sort decreasing by cpu ( 2 clicks?) does explorer.exe rise to the top?

I got this on my work pc when I leave it on, seems to be some sort of scheduled disk tidy - stops sfter about 30 mins & only uses a single cpu core on mine so 48% of cpu! my machine is still useable while it is running but usually just use it as an excuse to do something non-pc based - like 'network'

As a get out quick card you can end the process - do not shut down down task manager but select file >> new task >> explorer.exe this will restart the process.

hope this helps
Iain

Posted 2 years ago #
DaRC_L - Member

Yep got infected with a Virus 18months ago which forced me to rebuild the laptop with the added benefit of stripping out Norton (being a techy my laptop is like a gardeners garden...)

it runs so much better

Posted 2 years ago #
toys19 - Member

I think symantec do a full remover thingy? Here

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

From the comments sounds even more likely to be Norton. Think I might try removing it and installing Avast which I had for some time on a work PC

Edit - thanks for that link to the remover tool. Looks just what I need

Posted 2 years ago #
fubar - Member

google for 'vista disable indexing' or similar...the indexing service (Which will speed searches..but since I don't do many it's a bit pointless) trawls your hard disk and will result in loads of drive access whilst your not doing anything.

Posted 2 years ago #
cranberry - Member

A Google of "system queued windows error reporting files" suggests some things to try.

Posted 2 years ago #
apidya - Member

fubar: that's just was I was thinking after reading that Vista was used. My machine beats itself to a frenzy every so often too, though I haven't been sufficiently annoyed to look into it yet.

This might help (though it's a bit long winded): Stopping Vista From Thrashing Hard Disks to Death

That said, I refuse to let Norton products anywhere near my computer now, Microsoft Security Essentials does all the checking I need it to and is free. Bin Norton ASAP!

Posted 2 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

trawls your hard disk and will result in loads of drive access whilst your not doing anything.

This is a GOOD thing, not a BAD thing!
It does work while you're not doing anything so that it is faster when you are doing something.

Personally I use search all the time, it's one of vistas best features. Rather than trawling through the Start Menu or hunting through files, you can just type a few letters and go straight to it.

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

OK, update time. Removed Norton and everything was looking good but then started getting this continuous disk access again AARRGGHH.

Looked at the performance stuff and found the root cause is svchost.exe spawning itself gazillions of times and doing continuous disk read. Lots of references on Google and Microsoft support site to the problem, but no simple way of fixing without installing a £25 tool from a 3rd party.

Anyone point me in the direction of something that will reliably fix the svchost problem?

Posted 2 years ago #
retro83 - Member

Service host is a generic process that can hold many different services. Process explorer lets you look inside and see what they contain.

Did you look in the event log ?

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

I was looking at the resource monitor and seeing svchost.exe not only doing huge continuous disk reads, but also a new instance occuring every few seconds. There is a lot of information around about this being a known problem with both Vista and XP, but as said in the original post, no obvious free fix

Posted 2 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

What retro said ^

There should be multiple instances of svchost. Usually around four to six.

Posted 2 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

Right so take a look in the Event Log and see if there any errors reported.

Posted 2 years ago #
zokes - Member

It has been known for more nefarious software to pretend to be svchost, then thrash away doing things you'd rather it didn't. FWIW I've seen this phenomenon on various work PCs, which are allegedly 'protected' by sophos, so don't be surprised is Norton hasn't done its job either....

Posted 2 years ago #
verses - Member

+1 for Process Explorer

Here it's showing the processes on my PC, note the tooltip over one instance shows what service it's handling, in this case Remote Procedure Calls;

If you run it on yours you can narrow down which one is using lots of CPU/Memory/etc.

EDIT: If disk reading/writing is the main concern, choose;
View -> Select Columns -> Process Performance tab -> Tick "IO Delta Read Bytes" and "IO Delta Write Bytes" then click OK.

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

OK, thanks I've downloaded Process Explorer and see about 20 instances of svchost.exe running. However my machine is running fine at the moment as I have had a play with CCleaner, and the issue was always triggered on my wife's account on this laptop.

On one tool I tried, it found a couple of thousand instances of of nokia_ovi_suite_11_update.exe_(can't remember the rest). Don't know if there was an installation problem that caused this, or whether something else caused the Ovi software to replicate. I removed Ovi completely and reinstalled.

Any thoughts on either of the above? Since doing the above remedial stuff have not yet let my wife loose on her account, so do not know if problem is fixed or not

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainMainwaring - Member

So having downloaded Process Explorer and shut down my latop, I can't find it now I'm booted back up. It installed in the normal programs folder so why can't I see it?

Posted 2 years ago #
monkeychild - Member

Remove Windows, install Ubuntu and relax

Posted 2 years ago #
GrahamS - Member

It'll be there in the normal programs folder. It might not create an entry on the Start menu though (at least it never used to anyway).

Just type "Proc" in the Start menu search box and it should appear.

Posted 2 years ago #

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