Hard drive spins constantly at 100% when computer is idle

[Cubsfan2600]

After i lock the computer and leave for a bit, i come back to find my hard drive spinning constantly at 100 % reading and writing, but when i touch the mouse and move it it immediately goes away.


I've tried disabling the Search Indexer, but that hasnt seemed to stop it. Anyone have any ideas on what to do? It's really frustrating... 🙁

Scheduled defrag is off too.

It's an Asus G73JW Laptop

 

[Pyree]

I think it is the auto defrag.

 

[Cubsfan2600]

I think it is the auto defrag.

Nope, scheduled defrag is also already disabled.

 

[Pyree]

Maybe window is creating restore point. Try disable system restore.

 

[Cubsfan2600]

Maybe window is creating restore point. Try disable system restore.

But would it really create a restore point every time is goes idle?

And we're would an automatic system restore program be? When i searched system restore in the start menu, i just go the regular system restore area.... there's not even any option to set up an automatic system restore point thing.

 

[Pyree]

Yes. If it hasn't finish, it just pick up from where it left off before. Also, it will be created when settings change in your computer, like after window update, etc.

 

[nukemaster]

Windows Vista and 7 tend to monitor hard drive activity and do not go much until the computer is idle(it even trys to move boot files to the start of the drive if defrag schedule disabled.). So that said, Windows does all kinds of stuff while a system is idle. My media center does the same thing every night when its not in use.

Lots of users have complained about this extra disk usage(including pre fetching data into free ram), but so far I have seen no issues.

 

[Cubsfan2600]

Windows Vista and 7 tend to monitor hard drive activity and do not go much until the computer is idle(it even trys to move boot files to the start of the drive if defrag schedule disabled.). So that said, Windows does all kinds of stuff while a system is idle. My media center does the same thing every night when its not in use.

Lots of users have complained about this extra disk usage(including pre fetching data into free ram), but so far I have seen no issues.

Yea i've heard that too, but the thing is it's not just little spurts here and there every couple seconds, its FULL ON 100% all the time, until i move my mouse. Don't think that's too normal.

 

[nukemaster]

I leave my media center on at night, it just goes nuts after it detects being idle. it does it for at least 15-20 min. and this is every night. i have no clue what windows is doing. Has done it since the machine was built.

 

[Cubsfan2600]

I leave my media center on at night, it just goes nuts after it detects being idle. it does it for at least 15-20 min. and this is every night. i have no clue what windows is doing. Has done it since the machine was built.

I don't open or even touch media center for that matter...hmm

 

[nukemaster]

I don't open or even touch media center for that matter...hmm

It is just a media center system(used for watching videos/tv/some games), but it is use to play music at night, so media center is off, it is effectively idle with Winamp streaming music from the net. If i move the mouse while it is doing its thing(blink bliiinnnkkk), it stops doing it until it sits idle for a while again.

The system just runs Windows 7 Home 64 bit.

 

[Pyree]

Well, I have system restore off, indexing off and auto defrag off for both laptop and desktop (SSD, so I do that to optimise system). I don't see the HDD indicator blink rapidly when idle (only when I log off and let the garbage collection to kick in, but then it will stop eventually). So I say it is worth a shot to turn off system restore and see what happen.

 

[nukemaster]

When 7 detects a SSD, it is designed to auto turn off defrag(it will show as on, but NOT use it).

It is supposed to have its own set of optimizations for SSD's(as long s the SSD reports to be a 0 rpm drive) to avoid too much wear on the SSD.

As long as your drive and board support Trim, GC should not be required. GC is a drive level feature and I do not even think that windows initiates it.

 

[Pyree]

No, TRIM and garbage collection is different.

HDD can directly overwrite the platter but NAND needs to be erased before write.

When Window delete something, it is marked as "ready for overwrite". This is why you can recover deleted stuff. However, while HHD don't have a performance penalty overwriting the platter, SSD needs to perform extra step to erase the NAND before writing. This leads to performance degradation. The TRIM command is an extra step of the Window command. When something is deleted on an SSD, it is also tagged as "please erase it" so that when SSD is idle and garbage collection kicks in, it will be erased. When something needs to be written on the SSD again, it doesn't need to erase and can be written on directly.

But then again, this is hardly relevant to the thread.

 

[sminlal]

If it starts when you leave the computer and ends when you move the mouse, then it's something that's configured to run when the system is idle. Indexing and virus scans are the most likely culprits.

Run resource monitor, bring up the disk stats and click the IO/sec column heading to sort the highest-activity processes to the top of the list. Then wait for the system to go idle to see which process is consuming the most disk I/O. That will be the culprit.

 

[Jim Barber]

If it starts when you leave the computer and ends when you move the mouse, then it's something that's configured to run when the system is idle. Indexing and virus scans are the most likely culprits.

Run resource monitor, bring up the disk stats and click the IO/sec column heading to sort the highest-activity processes to the top of the list. Then wait for the system to go idle to see which process is consuming the most disk I/O. That will be the culprit.

***************************************************************
Hey all. I have an i7 with 16gb of memory and absolutely smoked with Windows 7 on it. But, when I put Windows 8 on it, the C: drive ran at 100% from the time it started the final setup process and never quit. I managed to get all of the updates on it but it still spun 100%. I thought I’d start seeing smoke coming out of the drive lol.

I tried installing Hyper-V and turning off System Restore. But, that didn’t work either. I did notice that on the initial setup, it creates 4 partitions (one of them being the actual OS partition. I’m going to put a 1gb GForce video card in to see if that works. Other than that, I’m stumped. The board I have is a new MSI.

Thanks all for any help you give.

Jim B.