Excessive disk activity on startup

[stevent]

I just recently upgraded to Vista Business.

I've noticed that everytime I startup Vista, there is nearly continuous hard drive activity for about 10 minutes or more. I can find no reason to explain this.

Beyond the typical MS and Thinkvantage programs, the only other programs that are set to run on startup are the onenote screen clipper (onenotem.exe), AVG antivirus (free version), Roboform password manager and activewords. I also have Acronis Trueimage installed, but I haven't activated any of its auto backup/protection features, just manual backups.

I do not have any gadgets or windows sidebar running on startup.

I've run a full AV scan but found nothing.

I thought it might be the indexing service, so I disabled it (disabled the windows search service). However, the problem continues.

Other info: 2 Gigs of RAM, also a 2 Gig SD card being used for ready boost.

Anyone have any ideas?
All help appreciated.

[Chrissss]

I'd bet it's something similar to what happens to many folks in XP.

A process named SVChost runs the processor and drive hard while doing a system check for Windows Update. It would peg my processor at 100% for many minutes. The cure was to disable auto updates.

Chris...

[segalsegal]

You can find out the answer using Microsoft's Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx
I agree with Chris that the answer is probably the svchost.exe process involved with Windows Update.

Recently I changed the Automatic Updating setting to installing automatically, and I find far less problem with svchost.exe.

If you do a certain set of things, Vista runs quite well. I would not be surprised if this set of things is what folks at Microsoft do. The set seems to be turn off UAC, avoid Windows Mail and set Automatic Updating to installing automatically.

[EinsteinTech]

Actually there's an awesome new feature of Vista called Performance and Reliability Monitor (search the start menu for it) and one of the things it lists is disk activity by process. Sort the list by Read/min then Writes/min to see if you can figure out which process is the culprit.

I find that urgems.exe is pretty write-happy.

[stevent]

Thanks for the replies.

I turned off auto updates completely and that didn't seem to make a difference. I also tried removing activewords from startup, and that obviously isn't the cause of my problems either.
I'm trying to test one variable at a time, and so far no luck.

I did monitor the disk activity in performance monitor.
During the first 10-15 minutes after vista starts up, I have 4-6 MB/sec throughput and 100% highest active time. I note that there is a lot of read activity. Some images that seem to be very active include system, input personalization, various avg (antivirus) entries, C\$Mft, and a lot of svchost. I note that the svchost images have corresponding file entries that deal with things I wouldn't expect, including firefox, office12/wwlib, excel, outlook, etc.

Note that during this time, I have not started any programs other than those set to auto load such as activewords, onenote screen clipper, avg antivirus and sync center. I also have the wireless on, which connects to an access point relatively quickly.

I have UAC turned off. I don't use Vista's built-in mail or contact client, instead relying on Outlook 2007. I do have Aero turned on, and will likely try turning that off just to confirm that's not the problem, although I don't see why it exhibit this type of behavior. I also havesystem protection/restore turned on for the C: drive, and I have several restore points for the computer available.

I also note that there doesn't seem to be any processes (listed under task manager) that appear to be using a lot of cpu resources during the startup time period.I have 2 Gigs of RAM, and note that under task manager, the memory meter always lists memory usage betweenroughly 500k and 1Gig, but that there is no free memory because1Gig is listed as being cached.I don't recall WinXP exhibiting such behavior. Is this normal for Vista?

This is driving me absolutely nuts since it really taxes the machine and slows it down for that period of time.

WouldProcess Explorer provide any more useful information than what is displayed in the performance monitor? I'll also try setting auto update to auto install, although I question whether that will make a difference since turning in off didn't.

Again, the replies as well as any additional ideas or insights are appreciated.

Edited by: stevent

[EinsteinTech]

Well when you were looking at the disk activity in reliability and performance monitor, which process was reading/writing the most?

[stevent]

Please see my previous post (revised) concerning processes.
I'll restart my computer when I get the chance and try to record more details of the disk activity.

Thanks.

[EinsteinTech]

The MFT stuff could indicate that you need to defragment and increase the size of the master file table. This usually occurs if you have lots of files on disk. My MFT usage went through the roof when I bought some icon packs.
You can download a trial of Diskeeper which can both defragment and increase the MFT. If nothing else, it will perform a pretty good analysis of your hard disk's performance health.

http://www.diskeeper.com

[FeralBoy]

Josh's idea sounds great...I had a similar situation with XP and it turned out it was a dying hard drive...so back up anything you need that isn't backed up, just in case.

[K0LO]

Stevent:

It's probably Vista's Superfetch feature. This process runs at startup and fills your RAM with the most-frequently used programs so that they will start up faster.

And yes, it's normal to have RAM filled by the time that this process completes. Memory is released as-needed to other programs.

Edited by: K0LO