Windows Vista 24/7 Hard Drive Activity.

[fultz2005]

I recently bought a Vista computer from dell.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.2GHz

1 GB [2x512MB] DDR2 Ram

Nvidia Geforce 6150 LE

160 GB Western Digital HDD

Windows Vista Home Basic

It was fine at first, even with superfetching, windows defender, indexing and readyboost enabled. Then while I was playing World of Warcraft I started lagging like crazy. I tried rebooting and noticed the Hard Disk activity light was flashing constantly even when the computer was idle. I googled it and found tons of threads claiming different things in vista caused this.

Right now I have Disabled Indexing from the drive and the service, Readyboost, Superfetch, Defender, Autoplay, Uninstalled my anti-virus (AVG), Disabled system restore. Can't disable shadow copy because it's not enabled to start with. Nothing has solved the problem. The hard disk is still constantly writing to files and it makes me lag in games which is really annoying...

Here's a screenshot of the resource monitor and what is being written.

Lastalive1.dat and Lastalive0.dat are constantly there. They don't even disappear for a second. I've found that disabling event log will make lastalive1.dat and lastalive0.dat disappear but then It also disabled my system restore and disk defragmenter. Also, the 'system' processes are still constantly writing anyways, or else I'd just live without defrag and system restore.

I heard that it was from windows patches and SP1 fixes it. I tried installing SP1, It didn't fix it. Does anyone have any clue how to get this to stop? It's seriously effecting my game performance.

Thanks in advance :(

[+DKAngel Subscriber²]

from what i read its writing at 100kb/sec how the hell can that lag u in games considering the drivesprolly can do about 35MB/sec

[fultz2005]

from what i read its writing at 100kb/sec how the hell can that lag u in games considering the drivesprolly can do about 35MB/sec

I'm not sure. I know it's a 5200 RPM hard drive but it just recently started doing this and it makes massive stuttering in all my games. It never lagged before and I've changed nothing, except the removal of the services listed above which occured after this problem started.

[Inertia]

I would blame your Ram, upgrade to 2gb or even 4gb, so it doesn't have to page as much.

[fultz2005]

I would blame your Ram, upgrade to 2gb or even 4gb, so it doesn't have to page as much.

But it just started and I've always had 1 GB ram. Also my ram utilization is below 40% most of the time and it doesn't appear to be the paging file that it's writing to. I've seen it write to the page file before and I understand that perfectly but it's 24/7 even when Idle and it just recently started happening.

Not trying to question your judgement or anything, I just can't understand it.

[vf-]

Don't get more ram. You'll only be wasting money if thats the only purpose for getting more. I have 2GB and suffer this same problem. Not to the same extent as yours. So getting more wont fix it. But when its sitting idle the hard drive will start chugging away for ages until I wake it up.

Lots of people seem to be aware of it.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-repli...cfm/737682.html

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-repli...cfm/701713.html

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums.../m/771005504831

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t249442.html

http://www.winforumz.com/vista/Continuous-...topict4050.html

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic70071.html

http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=15835

[Thrawn]

There is something wrong with your software. You might have a rootkit/bot running. You might have installed some weird services. If you can't figure it out, just reformat and reinstall with the dell disk, and watch what you install. Perhaps install Norton AntiBot first. And of course I'm sure you uninstalled the dell crapwares.

Also, I'm NOT sure if 100kb/sec is normal or not... but you do have enough ram! 2GB is much better, but 1GB is ok.

There is no need to disable all those enhancemets: they run only when you're idle, especially if you let your computer idle regularly. That's the best thing to do, not turning it off/to sleep whever you're away.

PS: DOn't use readyboost drives... now that can cause games to lag.

[fultz2005]

There is something wrong with your software. You might have a rootkit/bot running. You might have installed some weird services. If you can't figure it out, just reformat and reinstall with the dell disk, and watch what you install. Perhaps install Norton AntiBot first. And of course I'm sure you uninstalled the dell crapwares.

Also, I'm NOT sure if 100kb/sec is normal or not... but you do have enough ram! 2GB is much better, but 1GB is ok.

What's a rootkit? I'd rather not reinstall it's brand new and I would lose all my settings and data :(

[vf-]

That's superfetch doing its thing. When you exit a game, a lot of memory gets free. Vista starts filling that free memory with things related to your frequently used porgrams. Once the memory is filled 99-100%, the hard disk activity will stop.

http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=15835

Vista does various things in the background when you are not doing anything. Microsoft figured it was better to do that stuff when you aren't doing anything as opposed to trying to do it when you are playing your favorite game, etc.

If you are just really curious you can go to www.sysinternals.com and download file monitor or hard drive monitor and just let it sit on your screen and watch visually what your computer is doing.

[Raa]

Remove Vista and go to XP, you'll get far better performance, reliablity, and compatibility.

Definately upgrade that ram - 3gb would do nicely :)

[fultz2005]

I have superfetch Disabled, though. Also, it doesn't do it when I'm not doing anything, it does it ALL the time 24/7. I can't afford to upgrade to 3GB ram or downgrade to Windows XP... Just got this. If I could go XP if it were that easy believe me I'd have done it last night.

[omganinja]

Is it just the search indexer thing?

[fultz2005]

I don't think it's the search indexer. I have it disabled in both the service and the drive.

Here's another screenshot of the HDD activity if it helps at all.

Any suggestions?

Edited January 14, 2008 by fultz2005

[ViperAFK]

Could be superfetch, or automatic defrag, backup or other things vista does in the background. Just leave your pc on for like a day or two and see if it stops. If it is a very recent install vista needs some "Burn in" time but after that it runs great.

[Iian K]

I had a problem like that a while back, about the time when Windows Vista came out. I ended up formatting and reinstalling Vista.

@ViperAFK: That is true, Vista needs some time to get everything straight.

How recent is the install?

[notuptome2004]

question why would you disable Vistas indexing

[fultz2005]

question why would you disable Vistas indexing

Not sure how recent the install is, but I just got the computer brand new in the box and set it up around christmas. I disabled indexing because I read that it could be the cause of the problem. Of course, it ended up not being the only issue, but it does help some. Windows Defender, Superfetch + Readyboost and Windows Update all try to access the hard drive at random times so I have left those disabled and the activity is only from System most of the time now.

I've pinpointed C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\Lastalive1.dat, when I disable System Event Log this file disappears but also disabled several key windows features such as System Restore and Disk Defragmenter, among others. I have no clue where the rest are coming from.

I honestly don't think restalling will do any good because the only stuff other than official games I have installed on this computer is an anti virus, some official dvd software and some official games, there's no reason why it would be infected with any viruses or spyware and I have run scans with tons of programs (HiJack This, Windows Defender, AVG and more) and vista seems relatively secure for this to happen. Seems more like a 'feature' of vista that causes more trouble than it's worth.

Could be superfetch, or automatic defrag, backup or other things vista does in the background. Just leave your pc on for like a day or two and see if it stops. If it is a very recent install vista needs some "Burn in" time but after that it runs great.

I don't see how it could be those things because I have system restore, superfetch, readyboost, windows defender, search indexing, windows search, windows update and system restore all disabled. Also, I've had this computer since December 25th and it only just recently started doing this...

Anyways if you have any idea what the problem is please let me know...

Edited January 14, 2008 by fultz2005

[Thrawn]

You know, the game lag could be totally unrelated to this small amount of hard disk usage...

Since you've naturally damaged many settings up in trying to solve this problem, a reinstall is perhaps a good idea :(

[fultz2005]

You know, the game lag could be totally unrelated to this small amount of hard disk usage...

Since you've naturally damaged many settings up in trying to solve this problem, a reinstall is perhaps a good idea :(

I guess the lag could be unrelated, but I don't see how I've damaged anything to warrant a re-install. I could just turn the services and features back on, although I don't see why I'd want to do that because when I have readyboost and superfetch on the disk usage is 5000 times worse. After disabling these features, my startup time has decreased by 20-30 seconds. Windows defender also contributes to the disk usage even when I'm not idle. What have I disabled other than system restore that is actually a necessity?

[+DKAngel Subscriber²]

your lag ingames maybe from the really poor gfx card that u have in your system and possibly not the things your hdd is doing

[fultz2005]

your lag ingames maybe from the really poor gfx card that u have in your system and possibly not the things your hdd is doing

But it will go at 40-60fps fluid without any lag and then out of nowhere stop for 2-3 seconds and immediately stop, it doesn't lag it just completely freezes for 2-3 seconds. It never used to do this before. If it was the graphics card, believe me, I'd understand 100% but the game doesn't just run like butter for half a month and then automatically develop problems.

[notuptome2004]

i myself have never disabled any services i n Vista nore would i want to it all runs great

[dimlag]

I had the same problem a month ago and the reason was a spyware program. I can't recall the name of the program but it was running under an instance of run32dll.exe. When I will go home I will try to find the name of the file but it's a pain in the ass to remove it. I will describe the procedure but PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK as it is very risky to clean it.

First try to download from Microsoft the Process Explorer v11.04 and see what processes are running. Notice how many processes you have of run32dll.exe ( I had 3 and one of them was the spyware program) and watch wich one has constant activity. Try to pause the run32dll.exe with the most activity and see if your hard drive stops havind insane activity. If this stops the drives from working all the time, then u have to go to the properties of this process. See where this file is and what registry key is using to run (It's a good idea to google the filename in order to see if it os OK to remove it.). While it's paused delete the registry key. Delete the file and RESET your PC. Be very carefull though and DO NOT delete run32dll.exe this is a system file.

This worked for me. Hope this helps.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Your screenshots don't look terribly helpful. Neither of them is sorted by Read or Write byte/min.

Could you take a look and see which processes (and which files) are at the top of the list when sorted by either of those?

[fultz2005]

I think this is what you mean? If it's not, just let me know if you need more screenshots.

As far as Process Explorer, I downloaded it and there's only two rundll32.dll listed and both of them say they are related to my nvidia driver when I hover over it as seen below.