Crunch, crunch, crunch.

[t0mmyb0y]

Anyone know why a computer would be constantly crunching the hard drive? My girl's computer (my old Gateway Performance 450) will do this even when the system is completly idle. She is not running any distributed computing. She has 256MB of ram in win2K, which should be enough I would imagine. I'll provide more details once I poke around a bit this weekend.

I have thought that it might be the page file, but I don't understand why it would do it when shes not using the computer.

I'm thinking I might just blow 300 for valentines and get her a shiny new nforce2 with one of those 1700+ B chips.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Indexing Service.

 

[t0mmyb0y]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Indexing Service.

I checked, and it was already disabled. Any other ideas?

Also her computer has begun freezing up when she runs a few different programs (excel, word, IE, aim etc.) I'm thinking it could be hard drive or ram going bad. I plan on using DFT and memtest86 when I get a chance.

 

[t0mmyb0y]

OK I tried ran memtest86 for 5 hours, and DFT through an advanced test and neither is the problem. The computer appears to be fine now, but still crunches away. Could be she just needs a new hard drive.

I'm afraid that if I mess with it she might not be able to get windows up again. Do you think this computer can handle windowsXP Pro?

Performance 450
256 MB Ram
Geforce Pro 32MB
13GB Loud Harddrive (WD) <----probably replace with a 20GB Samsung 5400

Thanks!

 

[EeyoreX]

The PC should handle Windows XP. I am not sure what processor is in the machine, but if at least a P-II 400 you should be fine. YUou probably will have to disable/not use some of Win XP's fancy display enhancements, but otherwise shouldn't be a problem. Though Windows XP tends to hog hard drive space so be mindfull of that when considering what size hard drive you might want to get. If she'll have lots of data, I'd say at least a 40GB. Of course, my main rig has 260GB of hard drive space, and my file server is due for a 200GB upgrade, bring it to nearly 400GB so maybe I am biased towards big...

Hope this helps!

\Dan

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Why don't you look to see what process is doing it? Chances are, if a process is making the disk crunch, it's going to be taking some cpu cycles too.

 

[magomago]

Spyware?


Unless your GF is a gamer I think the nforce2 might be a little overkill

 

[t0mmyb0y]

Yeah I checked out the processes and it just has it on idle processes. Could have been spyware. I installed winxp on the 20GB hard drive that I had and it is working fine. Even if it crunches now, it should be much quieter.

I was thinking the nforce2 because i could get it with integrated video, sound, and network for really cheap. Plus memory and throughbreds are dirt cheap as well right now. I think i'll hold off because it appears the computer really likes XP

Thanks guys!

 

[wfbberzerker]

doesnt windows defragment the hard drive if it detects the computer has been idle for awhile?

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: wfbberzerker
doesnt windows defragment the hard drive if it detects the computer has been idle for awhile?

Never heard that one before...

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: Paulson

Originally posted by: wfbberzerker
doesnt windows defragment the hard drive if it detects the computer has been idle for awhile?

Never heard that one before...

I have heard that it will optomise the system, moving some of the files around while it's idle for the often used programs, kind of a housekeeping thing.


Confused

 

[Lord Evermore]

I'm pretty sure that only got added to WinXP, not Win2k. It's similar to the optimization that was introduced with Win98 and FAT32, where program accesses are tracked and logged to record which parts of a file are loaded in what order. Then during a defrag run, the file clusters are arranged to provide the fastest access in the order they normally load. WinXP performs an idle defrag to do this, rather than waiting for a user to run defrag like Win98. However this shouldn't happen very often. Once the files are arranged, they pretty much stay there unless you delete the program or files. If you install new programs or stop using one program and start using another a lot, this may result in some rearranging, but not as much as the first few times when it's starting from scratch.

 

[Le Québécois]

I've you tried a scandisk on it? I mean a complete one..sector by sector.

 

[NokiaDude]

It's windows optimizing the memory. Putting things into RAM, putting things into the pagefile. And if your computer if connected to the internet then it'll be crunching until you dis-connect or shut down.

 

[t0mmyb0y]

Originally posted by: Le Qu&eacute;b&eacute;cois
I've you tried a scandisk on it? I mean a complete one..sector by sector.

I ran DFT (advanced test) which is the next step up from scandisk. Ran through like a charm. I just think her win2k installation got hosed. Probably from something she downloaded from Kazaa Seems to work fine with winXP now. I guess the upgrade will have to wait

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: t0mmyb0y
OK I tried ran memtest86 for 5 hours, and DFT through an advanced test and neither is the problem. The computer appears to be fine now, but still crunches away. Could be she just needs a new hard drive.

I'm afraid that if I mess with it she might not be able to get windows up again. Do you think this computer can handle windowsXP Pro?

Performance 450
256 MB Ram
Geforce Pro 32MB
13GB Loud Harddrive (WD) <----probably replace with a 20GB Samsung 5400

Thanks!

I was running WinXP on my
p2 400,
MSI 6119 Slot 1 board
256mb pc100 mem
Geforce 256 annihalator pro
13gb fujitsu drive

for at least 18 months without a problem.

Dan