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Win2k HDD thrashing problems

S

superbaby

Senior member
Every once in a while, while I'm doing normal tasks (e-mail, ICQ, this, that) the main hard drive C: will start to thrash. It usually doesn't stop for a very long time (once it stopped, I think it was 2 hours later). In most cases I just reboot my machine, which takes really long to do because of the thrashing.

When I check task manager, the System Idle Process is at like 99, it goes up and down, but it's still higher than it ought to be.

I don't know what's going on but it's really annoying me. Trying to take a nap this afternoon and the computer started thrashing, gave me a big big headache.
 
are you running the MS office FindFast. sometimes it is installed when you are installing office. disable it and you shouldn't see the thrashing anymore
 
My system specs:

P3-450 (not OC'd)
196MB PC100 SDRAM
Matrox G400 32MB DH
SB Live! Value w/ Optical I/O
Linksys 10/100 NIC
Linksys Phoneline NIC
Adaptec 2940UW SCSI Adapter
4GB UW-SCSI2
9GB UW-SCSI2
13GB EIDE
20GB EIDE
60GB EIDE
6X Pioneer SCSI DVD
12x4 Plextor SCSI CDR
72X Kenwood EIDE CD-ROM
Dual-boot WinME/Win2k (SP1)
 
Bring up the command prompt and type diskperf -n.

That disables Disk IO Logging...that should reduce the overhead by quite a fair bit.
 
What is disk IO logging? I'll disable it if it's something as a regular user I need not worry about.

If it will reduce some wear and processing, thanks for the tip 🙂

Also, do you need to do it everytime you reboot?
 
It's permanent, but you can always re-enable it, using diskperf -y

As a normal user, you will not need Disk IO Logging.

It's simply one of those not very useful performance counters that Win2K keeps.
 
Does this thrashing happen during normal operations under both OS'?

Considering you don't know what diskperf is, doubtful it would be enabled, This is something you would have had to enable to begin with. In any case, this would only have an effect under Win2k, not under WinME.

The System Idle Process should be hovering between 97% and 99%. This is a good thing.

You haven't said whether or not you have any background tasks running. Things like AV software or Disk management software would do as you describe. Do you have scandisk scheduled to run periodically?

Check your startup folders for anything that may be starting on bootup. Also check the Run key in the registry for items that may be called there as opposed to the Startup folders.

If you are typically running only the applications stateda above, then the amount of RAM you have is enough. But the question here is, are you noticing system slow downs while this is happening? Check the pagefile to see if it is being used at all. Although you have 196MB RAM, if some of it is bad, the system may be swapping to and from the disk. Check your memory to make sure it is all good.
 
The scandisk/virus scan is a good idea.

In our training labs at work I want to destroy every PC in the room at 3:00 -- that's when they all go crazy and do their scanning routine. Lasts at least 30-40 minutes and these machines don't have that much stuff on them.
 
you're right. In Win2k they are enabled. In NT 4.0 they are not. Last time I checked anyway, which was years ago, they had to be enabled in NT 4.0 in order to monitor specific disk activity
 
I don't have any virus scanners in memory, not disk managers of any type. The "run" key in registry is clean except for a couple programs I load myself (and they aren't disk intensive).

The only thing in the startup folder is Winamp, other than that ICQ, MS IntelliPoint 3.1, Logitech iTouch 1.40, and mIRC are loaded into memory.

The system doesn't slow down when it's thrashing! That's what is puzzling me! Only SOMETIMES it slows down, but it is thrashing as I type and as far as I can tell... except for that goddamn noise, nothing is wrong!

I do run a FTP, and have a SQL server in the background. The FTP draws quite a bit of traffic but I doubt it's related because the server uses files in G:, not C: (which is thrashing). The FTP program is installed in D: drive. SQL is installed in C:, but I don't have any tables, data or any programs that access it. In fact I installed it 2 days ago but I have yet to import my programs.

I've just done that diskperf thing, do I need to reboot?
 
I typed diskperf -n and it gave me...

'diskperf' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Hmmm...
 
DQL Server has its own scheduler and does automatic defrags of its databases.
You said you have no databases in there, but that doesn't technically matter. SQL server comes with some already. Several actually. So, its routine maintenance could be what's causing your thrashing. You can check this out by looking at your Event viewer (don't remember what key) Look at the time and date of the last time it was thrashing and see what had started just before that.
BTW, Diskperf was already disabled on my computer Win2k SP1, and I didn't do it.

Hope that helps.
 
Hi,
I believe part of the problem here is that some readers do not understand what "thrashing" is. Thrashing often occurs when the PAGEFILE or Virtual memory is FRAGMENTED. There is a utilitly that will cleanup page file fragmentation. It is called Pagedfg. It is available from www.sysinternals.com. Not only will this utility tell you if your page file is fragmented it will also check your registry files. It runs at bootup. You will need to shutdown the PC and reboot after running pagedfrg. In order for Windows 2000 or NT to multitask (with only one cpu) a contiguous page file is needed. Of course there must be enough free contiguos space to relocate the page file. Another method of defragging a pagefile is to create one on a secondary hard drive or partition. Then remove the pagefile on the primary partition. Reboot and defragment C:. It is also a good idea to change the view in the NT Explorer to show all files and then do a search/find on *.tmp and delete them. After you have defragged the primary partion go into System performance, virtual memory and remove the pagefile on the secondary drive or partion and recreate one on the primary. Pagedefrag is a wonderful utility. Diskeeper 5 also has the ability to defragment a pagefile and it also can consolidate directory entries. The DEFRAG program in Windows 2000 is a scaled down version of Diskeeper 5.
Good luck

 
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