Question PC activity while idle ?

[Casualcoder0805]

I’ve recently been noticing that my PC will seem to be doing a lot of work when idle. No programs running or anything, I’m sitting at my desk on my phone and it will start to go crazy. I only notice it because I have a Lenovo M900 tiny that does make a lot of noise but that’s if I’m in Chrome, PyCharm, etc.

I’ve ran windows defender full scan and all the basic diagnostic stuff. Should I be concerned here or is it just Windows being Windows?

i7-6700T CPU @ 2.80GHz
32 GB RAM

 

[rgd1101]

could be schedule job to clean up? scan? update

 

[Colif]

windows uses idle to run things like updating the search database, defrag (yes, it does run it on ssd), or other things that it uses to speed up windows reaction to you. As soon as you move the mouse it will stop.

update doesn't wait until idle. I have win 10 on a VM and almost everytime I l start it up, windows update will run. Its annoying as I didn't make VM just for it to run. Defender is the same. Admittedly its rarely idle so there could be that.

 

[Casualcoder0805]

windows uses idle to run things like updating the search database, defrag (yes, it does run it on ssd), or other things that it uses to speed up windows reaction to you. As soon as you move the mouse it will stop.

update doesn't wait until idle. I have win 10 on a VM and almost everytime I l start it up, windows update will run. Its annoying as I didn't make VM just for it to run. Defender is the same. Admittedly its rarely idle so there could be that.

I actually turned off search indexing (is that the same as search database?). A year or two ago I got really annoyed with the noise and just went crazy disabling things I thought I could live without (probably not wise but oh well). Defender does seem to rev it up more than most other programs when I'm using it so that may be it. I have noticed that it does stop immediately, so I feel a bit better knowing that's to be expected. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Colif]

Any windows version updates installed since then may have enabled it again. I know as I have it disabled at the level where all my files have it off, but any system files updated since then might be in the index. I saw it running yesterday but as most files still marked as not indexed, I just let it be.

windows update uses it, check in the Microsoft store, look in your library (icon is bottom left above help) and see if any updates there... I noticed this morning I had something running and just waited 5 minutes for it to show me what it was.

 

[Casualcoder0805]

Any windows version updates installed since then may have enabled it again. I know as I have it disabled at the level where all my files have it off, but any system files updated since then might be in the index. I saw it running yesterday but as most files still marked as not indexed, I just let it be.

windows update uses it, check in the Microsoft store, look in your library (icon is bottom left above help) and see if any updates there... I noticed this morning I had something running and just waited 5 minutes for it to show me what it was.

Oh ok ya it was turned back on good to know. I also just increased my ram from 16gb to 32 and was thinking maybe something was messed up there and I needed to change the paging file sizes because I had previously messed with those too. Do these values make sense?

 

[Colif]

if you have 32gb, leave it auto. Windows will only set it as 5gb and hardly ever use it. Mine is actually only 2gb

How much free space on C drive? your max page file size of 212298mb makes me ask... it should be same size as memory... or at least, should be able to grow that big if need be.

An almost full drive could explain all the background activity. How many drives you have installed? What size are they?

• 1 x 2.5" HD / SSD / SSHD
• 1 x M.2 Slot for SSD

Laptops: Compare Laptops, Notebooks, Ultrabooks & 2-in-1s

Discover a wide range of Lenovo laptops that cater to your every need, from gaming and productivity to portability and affordability. Browse now to find your perfect match and elevate your computing experience.

www.lenovo.com

 

[Casualcoder0805]

Going back to system managed size has seemed to make a difference when coding. Appreciate the advice on that.

Have a couple thumbs that I've been meaning to transfer stuff to and should probably get on that as I didn't realize I only had 38% free on the C drive (but to me that seems like a decent amount, or maybe not?) I also have 3 user accounts technically I guess. One for personal use, one for my business and then administrator account that I never use. Does that have any impact? FWIW I'm almost positive I did something stupid with accounts/privileges when I bought it because I sometimes get random PermissionError's in Python but I've been apprehensive about diving into all that.

 

[Colif]

try this, it might reset the page file. Its still showing as 32gb

go into virtual memory screen and set it to No paging file
click set and ok and exit menus.
restart windows
go back into virtual memory and click Auto manage and okay, and exit out again.

that should reduce its size. it might take a few days to shrink as mine grew to 32gb while I was playing Diablo 4 (it has a memory leak) and its taken a few weeks to shrink back to 2gb again.

38% should be plenty free. Really only need to keep 10% free to maintain the speed of ssd.

Why do you have 12.65gb unallocated on C? At first I thought it might be over provisioning but thats normally 10% of drive, and the percentage is wrong.

i don't know if other user is cause. Its unlikely to be admin account, but how often you use other? Did you mess with its page file settings?

 

[Casualcoder0805]

try this, it might reset the page file. Its still showing as 32gb

go into virtual memory screen and set it to No paging file
click set and ok and exit menus.
restart windows
go back into virtual memory and click Auto manage and okay, and exit out again.

that should reduce its size. it might take a few days to shrink as mine grew to 32gb while I was playing Diablo 4 (it has a memory leak) and its taken a few weeks to shrink back to 2gb again.

38% should be plenty free. Really only need to keep 10% free to maintain the speed of ssd.

Why do you have 12.65gb unallocated on C? At first I thought it might be over provisioning but thats normally 10% of drive, and the percentage is wrong.

i don't know if other user is cause. Its unlikely to be admin account, but how often you use other? Did you mess with its page file settings?

Probably close to a 50/50 split between accounts. I don't think I've ever changed the settings on the other one. I did what you suggested yesterday morning so if I'm understanding you correctly I just need to wait for it to shrink?

As far as the 12gb unallocated your guess is as good as mine. A quick search made it seem liked extending isn't a big deal - should I do that?

 

[Colif]

i can't see mention of the unallocated space amount in association with laptop, so unless disk management looks different when you log onto other User, you should be able to extend C into the space.

page file should shrink over coming days, unless you really do use more memory than you have, in which case more ram is really only answer.

 

[Casualcoder0805]

i can't see mention of the unallocated space amount in association with laptop, so unless disk management looks different when you log onto other User, you should be able to extend C into the space.

page file should shrink over coming days, unless you really do use more memory than you have, in which case more ram is really only answer.

Still waiting on the page file to drop below the 32768 value. FWIW I don't do much besides browse the web, edit video clips and write code in pycharm. Anything else I may need to do? Tempted to just give it a fresh start but would rather not.

 

[Colif]

i don't actually recall how long it take to shrink on mine. It could take a few weeks.

how much ram do you use? How often do you restart PC?

One reason page file can grow is if you have a memory leak in a driver and it keeps taking memory off the system which tends to grow page file. If you restart PC every day or don't have fast startup on, the memory will be reset every startup and wouldn't grow to point it would cause memory errors.

Another reason is you actually use more than 32gb of ram, and it has to page it out to make space.

clean install would be a better idea than fresh start. Fresh start option in windows just resets windows. If you were to clean install you could pick up that extra 12.65gb of space in the same action.

 

[Casualcoder0805]

i don't actually recall how long it take to shrink on mine. It could take a few weeks.

how much ram do you use? How often do you restart PC?

One reason page file can grow is if you have a memory leak in a driver and it keeps taking memory off the system which tends to grow page file. If you restart PC every day or don't have fast startup on, the memory will be reset every startup and wouldn't grow to point it would cause memory errors.

Another reason is you actually use more than 32gb of ram, and it has to page it out to make space.

clean install would be a better idea than fresh start. Fresh start option in windows just resets windows. If you were to clean install you could pick up that extra 12.65gb of space in the same action.

The whole situation is weird. I don't think I use all of the memory considering I haven't noticed much difference since upgrading from 16gb to 32gb but who knows. I'm kind of lost at this point. On the bright side the computer really does work fine. It's more or less my OCD that wants everything to be perfect.

I've got multiple other issues (minor, but annoying) that I've been meaning to deal with so the best bet is probably a clean install. Hopefully that will remedy all of it. Thank you again for your advice and patience.