Posted - 2009.12.10 00:03:00 - [2]

 

Edited by: Sazkyen on 10/12/2009 00:03:36

Keep the task manager open and sort by CPU activity. It's better this way since some processes tend to deactivate when user activity is detected.

Edit: and, obviously, watch what processes float at the top during HDD activity.

Posted - 2009.12.10 02:02:00 - [4]

 

Edited by: dr doooo on 10/12/2009 02:08:51

Sounds similar to what's happened to me. When I installed windows live (in order to get a game to work) it installed a load of crap on my storage drive. It seems to be connected to 'MICROSOFT VISUAL C++ 2008 FEATURE PACK REDISTRIBUTABLE RUNTIME LIBRARIES', but I don't know exactly what that is, so I could be wrong.

Edit: if you uncheck any 'hide folders' or check any 'show folders' in the tools/folder options on your storage drives, does that give you any more clues?

Posted - 2009.12.12 00:13:00 - [6]

 

As Saz pointed out, your can have a look-see at what your PC is doing. Clearly there is something going on causing your hard drives to work. One question that would be of great help here...if you cold-booted your PC (ie. turned it on after it was completely off) and did nothing more to it whatsoever, would the hard drives still misbehave?

Regardless a few things you can check:

- Startup programs: Click Start -> Run -> Type 'msconfig' (without speech marks) and hit Enter -> Startup tab
See what you have here, all items here start with windows. You should be able to identify important things like video card drivers (nvxxx or atixxx), webcam/mouse/keyboard drivers (eg. logitech, saitek, etc), anything microsoft, etc. Google for items you aren't sure of. Untick anything non-critical (leave drivers and antivirus/firewall, everything else can go).

- Do a virus scan: You might consider disconnecting from your network for a time but you might have a computer virus trying desperately to infect and replicate. Run a thorough scan with maximum sensitivity, overnight if need be. Try Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to scan for other malicious software.

- Check performance in Task Manager. As Saz suggested CTRL+ALT+DEL -> Task Manager and look on Processes tab. Sort by CPU usage and see what is hammering our machine. Check the Performance tab and click Resource Monitor (if you have it). Sort by "Commit" (it's default ooption here anyway). See where your RAM is currently allocated. What do you have running right then? Anything unnecessary you can "End Task" on the "Processes" tab or disable via 'msconfig' startup tab as described above.

- Check your automatic settings for: Windows Indexing Service, System Restore, Scheduled Virus Scans, Automatic Updates, etc. You might consider temporarily disabling automatic behaviour on these and see if it helps (the first in particular).

- Change power-save settings: Change the power saving settings relating to HDD spindown time. Change them to whatever, the same across all profiiles, then change it back to a settings you actually want (eg. 10 mins, 20 mins, whatever).

- Other windows problem: Do you have a 4th spare HDD anywhere you can safely format? If not, an empty partition perhaps? Disconnect your current OS drive and install another copy of XP or whatever, on a new HDD/partition. Boot it up and see if the others still misbehave.

If it was only one HDD misbehaving, I might suggest hardware fault too as a possibly cause, but all 3 of the drives it's very, very unlikely. My guess would be crazy startup program, windows indexing, something is trying and failing to run or update but keeps trying anyway, or a virus. You need to identify what processes you have running when the problems happen, which processes run at startup and if there's anything that triggers it.

Try keeping an eye on Taskmgr as above, disable unnecessary startup apps and do a thorough virus scan, that would be a good start. If still no joy, disable Windows Indexing, Auto updates, etc, one by one. Let us know how you get on, what things you've tried and whether this behavour happens straight from a cold-boot or not.

Posted - 2009.12.12 20:59:00 - [8]

 

Edited by: Gneeznow on 12/12/2009 21:05:01

Originally by: KingsGambit

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- Startup programs: Click Start -> Run -> Type 'msconfig' (without speech marks) and hit Enter -> Startup tab
See what you have here, all items here start with windows. You should be able to identify important things like video card drivers (nvxxx or atixxx), webcam/mouse/keyboard drivers (eg. logitech, saitek, etc), anything microsoft, etc. Google for items you aren't sure of. Untick anything non-critical (leave drivers and antivirus/firewall, everything else can go).

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this was the first thing I did, and I do it habitually anyway to make sure the PC runs lean, so I routinely disable any unknown software from startup

Originally by: KingsGambit

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- Do a virus scan: You might consider disconnecting from your network for a time but you might have a computer virus trying desperately to infect and replicate. Run a thorough scan with maximum sensitivity, overnight if need be. Try Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to scan for other malicious software.

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I'll do that overnight, I've got avast and AVG running simultaneously, the hard drive spins-ups were a lot less frequent once I had disabled AVG and two instances of punkbuster from the task manager yesterday

Originally by: KingsGambit

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- Check performance in Task Manager. As Saz suggested CTRL+ALT+DEL -> Task Manager and look on Processes tab. Sort by CPU usage and see what is hammering our machine. Check the Performance tab and click Resource Monitor (if you have it). Sort by "Commit" (it's default ooption here anyway). See where your RAM is currently allocated. What do you have running right then? Anything unnecessary you can "End Task" on the "Processes" tab or disable via 'msconfig' startup tab as described above.

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I cant seem to catch it on taskmanager when it happens yet, seems anytime I sit and wait for it to spin up the drives it doesnt do it, but as soon as I switch off the monitor and go and start reading a book the PC goes nuts

Originally by: KingsGambit

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- Check your automatic settings for: Windows Indexing Service, System Restore, Scheduled Virus Scans, Automatic Updates, etc. You might consider temporarily disabling automatic behaviour on these and see if it helps (the first in particular).

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hmmmm I just turned off system restore and both drives spun up in unison, I'll have to keep an eye on that as it could have been the cause

Originally by: KingsGambit

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- Change power-save settings: Change the power saving settings relating to HDD spindown time. Change them to whatever, the same across all profiiles, then change it back to a settings you actually want (eg. 10 mins, 20 mins, whatever).

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done that, didnt help

Originally by: KingsGambit

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- Other windows problem: Do you have a 4th spare HDD anywhere you can safely format? If not, an empty partition perhaps? Disconnect your current OS drive and install another copy of XP or whatever, on a new HDD/partition. Boot it up and see if the others still misbehave.

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its a bit too much :effort: to do this, and anyway I don't have a spare empty drive


thanks for the help btw