Vista very slow - Hard Drive working a lot

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Kev
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I am running Vista 32 bit with Intel E4500 2.2GHz and 2GB Ram.
It has been Ok for a couple of years but lately the HD seems to be on a lot. At first I just switched the computer on and left it until it settled down, now however the computer slows down while I am using it. Everything can be going OK and suddenly something will take ages and the HD continuosly works. It is not linked to any specific action, I could be clicking on an internet link, opening a program, editing a photo etc. I just have to wait until the HD activity stops and then the computer carries on OK.
So far I have:
Updated Vista
Defragged the drive and then switched scheduled Defrag OFF.
Run Windows Discclean and also CCleaner
Run Microsoft Security Essentials
Run Malwarebytes
Turned off Indexing
Turned off Superfetch
Used Norton Utilities to Scan and fix problems, clean and defrag the registry and the HD
Checked for Disk problems
Checked for Memory problems
Stopped all startup programs via msconfig. (No improvement so I have allowed just MSE to startup)

Any suggestions on where I go next?
All suggestions gratefully received.
 
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neil_g said:
Is the memory usage high? Sounds like it's running out of physical memory so paging to the temporary file on the hard disk.
Click to expand...
:agree: Right click on the taskbar -> Start Task Manager and look at the Performance tab. What does the Physical Memory (MB) section say?

Vista and 2GB sounds like a recipe for a slow system if you aren't careful in what you install. You can also have a look at what starts up when you boot the PC. Start->Run type in msconfig and look at the Startup tab. Is there a lot of crud there?
 
neil_g said:
Is the memory usage high? Sounds like it's running out of physical memory so paging to the temporary file on the hard disk.
Click to expand...

Thanks, its behaving at the moment, I will have a look next time it plays up
 
arad85 said:
:agree: Right click on the taskbar -> Start Task Manager and look at the Performance tab. What does the Physical Memory (MB) section say?


Vista and 2GB sounds like a recipe for a slow system if you aren't careful in what you install. You can also have a look at what starts up when you boot the PC. Start->Run type in msconfig and look at the Startup tab. Is there a lot of crud there?
Click to expand...

I will have a look at the memory next time it plays up.

I should have said that I disabled everything in msconfig / startup and still had the problem. Only MSE is in there now.

Thanks for the reply.
 
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My tuppence worth would be to uninstal Norton regardless of what you did in msconfig...........

.........you only need one antivirus doodah and MSE is fine.
 
Mikesphotaes said:
My tuppence worth would be to uninstal Norton regardless of what you did in msconfig...........

.........you only need one antivirus doodah and MSE is fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.
I only have Norton Utilities installed, not anti-virus. Utilities was installed after the problem started so I don't think that was the problem, although if it is doing something in the background it may add to the load.
 
When you experience the issue, open Task Manager and look on the Process Tab. Make a list of the processes that are using the most memory, and how much memory they are using. Also look if any process is using a large amount of CPU, if so which one?

Also, as already said have a look at how much Physical Memory there is.
 
You're running out of physical memory. 2GB isn't really enough for Vista, let alone for photo editing.

Turning off Superfetch isn't going to help btw.

Luckily memory is ridiculously cheap these days, stick 8GB in there and you'll be sorted.
 
Have you got windows defender and your virus software running, if so turn windows defender off.
 
My media PC used to do this. Hard drive thrashing away and system on a go slow. Fresh install with windows7 instead of Vista fixed it for me.
 
Thanks for all the replies:)

An update:

My original post was last Saturday, on the Sunday I switched the computer on and it locked up after about 10 mins. Mem useage was 1.97 GB and CPU was 42%. Under Resource Monitor it showed dwm was using 0.77 CPU (whatever that means) and under Disk WDFME was around 54 787 000 firefox was around 21 067 000 however after about a minute the computer was useable and remained so all day which was an improvement.
I thought about what I had done and when and I realised that after stopping Superfetch I had not restarted the computer and assumed that stopping it had no effect. In case Superfetch needed restarting after any changes I renabled it and restarted the computer, I got the same lock up after about 10 mins but the computer kept locking up at various times after that.
I have again disabled Superfetch and the computer is useable except for the initial lockup after about 10 mins. The last time it did WDFME was again using the Disk and Memory, as this has to do with my external WD hard Drive, which is set up to automatically back up any new or changed files I can live with that.
It does lock up occasionally for a few seconds, the last time it was GoogleUpdate accessing the Disk, the time before it was MsMpEng ? and the time before that it was MS Antimalware Definitions. During those instances the CPU was at about 50% and the Physical Memory was at about 498Mb to 720MB.

Thanks if you have read this far - I can live with it as it is now but is it worth spending about £40 to upgrade to 4GB RAM? I have read quite a few reports that after 2GB there is not much improvement.

Kev
 
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Upgrading to 4GB would be a good idea. You will notice an improvement, especially if you're using 1.97 GB memory. (I assume you mean GB, not MB).

I find it strange disabling all items in MSConfig produced no change.
 
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someguy201 said:
Upgrading to 4GB would be a good idea. You will notice an improvement, especially if you're using 1.97 GB memory. (I assume you mean GB, not MB).

I find it strange disabling all items in MSConfig produced no change.
Click to expand...

Yes, I meant GB - original edited.

The physical Memory only gets above 1.9GB about 10 mins after start up, the rest of the time it is OK which is why I was hesitating about spending £40 :)

I agree about the disabling of everything in msconfig, I thought it would help a bit.

Thanks for the interest and the replies
Kev
 
TYwo things to note.

Vista is memory inefficient (compared to Xp and 7).
A 32 bit OS will only "see" 3.2G of your 4G memory if you upgrade to 4G. Going from 2G to 3.2G may well be enough to get rid of all the problems you are seeing.

If I may digress, I have just upgraded the memory in my fileserver from 2G to 10G. All it does is serve files and run a couple of programs as background tasks (keeping the network clean etc) but even though it is a Unix box, it was using nearly all of it's 2G memory. On upgrading to 10G, the copy speed for a 5Gbyte file (I do a lot of off-air recording and recoding so move large amounts of data around) from my Unix box fell from 1min 26secs (2G) to 53 secs (10G). I think the 53 secs was limited by the read performance of the disk (and possibly saturating the network as I was getting about 750-800Mbps on a 1Gbps network). I know this isn't directly relevant (and may confuse - apologies if so), but it does indicate that having extra memory can give surprising results...
 
neil_g said:
what is using that memory after boot? is it DWM? do you have aero enabled or any desktop widgets?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply
The main user is WDFME.exe which showed Commit (KB) 1 731 680 and Working Set (KB) 1 618 786 the next one was MsMpEng.exe with 94 896 and 7 596.

I have aero enabled but no widgets.
As I say I can live with it but it is strange as is the fact that it can go very slow/ stop responding at other times when the CPU is at 40% and the Physical Mem 600MB :shrug:
 
neil_g said:
WDFME.exe appears to be WD hard drive software? do you have a WD drive and are you using the software? otherwise id uninstall it.

seems to be a common issue with it hogging resources - http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-Smartware/WDFME-exe-Process-Keeps-Running/td-p/77252
Click to expand...

Happy 10 000 to you, glad I was of some help :D

Yes, I have just done a search of WDFME.exe and there is quite a bit about it hogging the system. I do have a WD drive and I really lioke the auto backup as it backs up all new and changed files and also keeps the last 5 copies of any changed file.
If my computer runs OK apart from the initial WDFME slowdown I will probably put up with it but keep looking to see if there is a solution somewhere.
What really used to bug me was that it slowed down about once an hour or so and that seems to have been cured

Thanks for your help
Kev
 
it may be that the auto backup is kicking off at boot and killing the resources then at periodic intervals? ive never used it to be honest so dont know.

maybe its worth seeing if you can reset the backup times and intervals to be less inconvinient? maybe at shutdown?
 
neil_g said:
it may be that the auto backup is kicking off at boot and killing the resources then at periodic intervals? ive never used it to be honest so dont know.

maybe its worth seeing if you can reset the backup times and intervals to be less inconvinient? maybe at shutdown?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the backup software runs all the time automatically, it even runs with the HD disconnected! I had disconnected the HD at one point and stopped all the running processes I could and it had no effect on the problem which is why I thought that the WD programs could not be the problem.
After lots of internet reading it seemed that the latest version of the software cured the problem but that was the version I had. I decided however to reload the software but that did not help, I then disconnected the drive,uninstalled all the software and restarted the computer which started and ran OK. I then re-installed the software and then re-connected the drive and restarted. Everything worked fine, the software started doing a new full backup but it did not slow down the computer, the RAM runs at about 1GB and even with Capture NX2, View NX2, Elements Edit & Organizer open and editing in Capture NX2 it got to about 1.8GB but everything ran OK :thumbs:

Once again thanks very much for your help, and thanks to everyone else who replied and gave suggestions.

Kev
 
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