Machine slows down on "low" HD space

[DolphinFreeTuna]

Hey All

I'm hoping someone here has a few good suggestions. I have a 200GB Seagate Baracuda SATA HD. When it gets filled up so that there is only about 30GB of free space left, my computer slows down a great deal. I can actually see the slow down begin at ~45GB, but it doesn't become a problem until ~30GB of free space is left. IMO, the machine speed shouldn't be affected until there is less free space (say~10GB), but maybe there's something about SATA drives that I'm not aware of. FWIW, when the slow down occurs, it doesn't seem to be due to excessive HD thrashing or anything like that

Here's the other relevant parts in my machine:

Memory: 1GB (2 X 512MB) OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2
Video Card 256MB NVidia 6800 GT
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500 90nm 939pin
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo2 (nForce3 Ultra) Socket 939

I also have my Virutal Memory size set to 1.5 GB. Am I just being unreasonable, or is there something that I can check?

TIA

 

[Pardus]

When it gets filled up so that there is only about 30GB of free space left, my computer slows down a great deal. I can actually see the slow down begin at ~45GB, but it doesn't become a problem until ~30GB of free space is left.

30gig is more than enough space for any os to function properly, sounds like you need to defrag.

Start -> Run - > dfrg.msc <enter>

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Warning: Do not attempt to edit your registry if you are not comfortable with doing so. Also, back up your registry (export) before messing with it...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ MICROSOFT \ WINDOWS \ CURRENTVERSION \ POLICIES \ Explorer DWORD "NoLowDiskSpaceChecks" = 1

This will remove the low disk space warnings...
Tas.

 

[DolphinFreeTuna]

Already did that, but it didn't help. Also ran various virus scans (AVG, The Cleaner) and Adware checks (Ad-aware, SpyBot), but cleaning out the few adwares found (no viruses or trojans were discovered) didn't change the behavior.

 

[DolphinFreeTuna]

Originally posted by: tasburrfoot78362
Warning: Do not attempt to edit your registry if you are not comfortable with doing so. Also, back up your registry (export) before messing with it...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ MICROSOFT \ WINDOWS \ CURRENTVERSION \ POLICIES \ Explorer DWORD "NoLowDiskSpaceChecks" = 1

This will remove the low disk space warnings...
Tas.

I'll try that, but I'm not getting warnings, just a fairly significant speed reduction.

 

[Harvey]

Are you having any other problems? Last week, I ran into a trojan on a friend's machine that Norton didn't find. I d/l's a free AV prog from avast.com that found it.

The program is free. You don't even have to register it for 18 days. After that, if you register, it's good for 14 months. I deleted the program after nuking the trojan because I thought it was a bit too assertive for my taste, but the uninstall program was clean so I wouldn't hesitate to install it again any time I wanted to check.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

I'd recommend performing a thorough spyware scan. My detailed spyware instructions here: http://theflyingpenguin.com/spyware-removal.shtml

Then do a full virus scan in SAFE MODE afterwards to play safe.

 

[DolphinFreeTuna]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try all of this out tonight after work and see if it fixes the problem.

 

[DolphinFreeTuna]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
I'd recommend performing a thorough spyware scan. My detailed spyware instructions here: http://theflyingpenguin.com/spyware-removal.shtml

Then do a full virus scan in SAFE MODE afterwards to play safe.

Well, I tried what was suggested, but still no difference. However, I do have some additional info that may help. I was looking at the Performance tab of the Task Manager (oh, I'm running WinXP BTW) and the CPU usage seems to remain around 80%, give or take. From this I decided to run Process Explorer from SysInternals. It seems that Hardware Interrupts are what are causing this additional CPU usage as the only other process with any of the CPU is the System Idle Process. Dunno if that's helpful, but does it give you any ideas as to what might be causing the issue?

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Well something is wrong. At idle the Idle process should be using 99% of the CPU.

I'm quite familiar with Systernal's Process Explorer and I don't understand how you ascertained that hardware interupts are the culprit. Do you have a process called hardware interupts? If so it's a fake one.

SOME QUESTIONS:

Specifically what process is using most of your CPU's time?

Did you run my spyware scan?

Has anything been installed on this computer at about the time this happened (hardware, software,driver)?

You could try using System Restore to roll the computer back to a date at least a week prior to this problem occring and see if you get lucky.

Hope this helps...

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Also, what is your virtual memory set to? Setting it to the same size (preferably 2X your system memory) for both the upper and lower will speed things up sometimes, as it isn't trying to dynamically adjust the amount.
Tas.

 

[DolphinFreeTuna]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin

Specifically what process is using most of your CPU's time?

Process: Interrupts
PID: n/a
CPU: between 70-80%
Description: Hardware Interrupts

Did you run my spyware scan?

Yep, followed it exactly. It found some minor things which I removed, but nothing like CoolWebSearch or Elite Toolbar.

Has anything been installed on this computer at about the time this happened (hardware, software,driver)?

Unfortunately it only began exhibiting the problem once I reached ~30GB. I can even remove files and get it back above 60GB and things seem to work ok then, it's just when it gets to 30GB that it really gets bogged down (there is some slight slowdown before that, but nothing major).

 

[DolphinFreeTuna]

Originally posted by: tasburrfoot78362
Also, what is your virtual memory set to? Setting it to the same size (preferably 2X your system memory) for both the upper and lower will speed things up sometimes, as it isn't trying to dynamically adjust the amount.
Tas.

I have 1GB RAM, and it was set to 1.5GB min, 3.0GB max, but I just set them both to 2GB. Will let you know if that fixed it after I restart.

 

[DolphinFreeTuna]

After setting the VM to 2GB, the Interrupts process isn't even listed in Process Explorer and things seem to be functioning normal now. The Interrupts process isn't even listed now. While this is great, I'm a bit suprised that this would fix the problem and specifically that it would make the offending process go away. If you have any idea why this might cause Interrupts to go away, I'm all ears.

Thanks All for your help.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: DolphinFreeTuna
After setting the VM to 2GB, the Interrupts process isn't even listed in Process Explorer and things seem to be functioning normal now. The Interrupts process isn't even listed now. While this is great, I'm a bit suprised that this would fix the problem and specifically that it would make the offending process go away. If you have any idea why this might cause Interrupts to go away, I'm all ears.

Thanks All for your help.

That's awesome that it works for you. As for how it worked, I have no idea. It might have just got to the point that it had to start worrying about where it was goign to allocate that space, and for some reason, 30gb was the threshold for your setup. Other than that, I honestly have no idea. Glad to hear it worked for ya, though. It's about time someone found something useful with what I have said on here.
Tas.