Enable driver verifier, this will shows us if there is a faulty driver.
Driver Verifier runs in the background, "testing" drivers for bugs. If it finds one, a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) will result; the corresponding dump file will hopefully show the faulty driver.
Driver Verifier - Enable and Disable
After you enable this, use the computer normally.
If it crashes post the zip file with the complete files.
Done. Note, after restarting, seems like everything is running very slow - at least for the moment. Should I turn verifier off if no problems in 24 hours as noted, or keep running?
Thanks!
No crash yet, but things are running really slow. It takes eight seconds for Firefox to start up. Last night I was running Outlook, PowerPoint, Windows Explorer, and Firefox and it would bog down all the time. I think a Commodore 64 would be faster.
By the way, here are some changes that were made based upon the suggestion of Toshiba tech support to optimize the SSD with Windows 7:
Disable indexing
Description: Indexing creates and maintains a database of file attributes. This can lead to multiple small writes when creating/deleting/modifying files. Searching for files will still work.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click [COLOR=#3b5f7e !important][COLOR=#3b5f7e !important]Computer[/COLOR][/COLOR] -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Windows Search -> Startup type: Disabled -> OK
Disable defragmentation
Description: Defragmenting a [COLOR=#3b5f7e !important][COLOR=#3b5f7e !important]hard [COLOR=#3b5f7e !important]disk's[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] used space is only useful on mechanical disks with multi-millisecond latencies. Free-space defragmentation may be useful to SSDs, but this feature is not available in the default Windows [COLOR=#3b5f7e !important][COLOR=#3b5f7e !important]Defragmenter[/COLOR][/COLOR].
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Disk Defragmenter -> Startup type: Disabled -> OK
Disable Write Caching
Description: There is no cache on the [COLOR=#3b5f7e !important][COLOR=#3b5f7e !important]SSD[/COLOR][/COLOR], so there are no benefits to write caching. There are conflicting reports on whether this gains speed or not.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> [COLOR=#3b5f7e !important][COLOR=#3b5f7e !important]Disk [COLOR=#3b5f7e !important]drives[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] -> Right-Click STEC PATA -> Properties -> Policies Tab -> Uncheck Enable write caching -> OK
Firefox - Use memory cache instead of disk cache
Description: If you use Firefox, there's a way to write cached files to RAM instead of the hard disk. This is not only faster, but will significantly reduce writes to the SSD while using the browser.
Instructions: Open Firefox -> Type about:config into the address bar -> Enter -> double-click browser.cache.disk.enable to set the value to False -> Right-Click anywhere -> New -> Integer -> Preference Name "disk.cache.memory.capacity" -> value memory size in KB. Enter 32768 for 32MB, 65536 for 64MB, 131072 for 128MB, etc. -> restart Firefox
Yes, after 24 hours, if you don't get a BSoD, then disable Driver Verifier.
Were the settings suggested by Toshiba tech support all changed, they were not initially set as they recommended?
Those should be pre-set by Toshiba when you bought the laptop, especially the defrag.
Have you noticed any improvement?
Probably have to disable Driver Verifier before you can tell.
Will do. Still no BSOD, nor program stopping in my case.
I did all of the changes - they were not preset by Toshiba. They were actually a recommendation by Nexicore - their tech support contractor for field service work and based upon improvements listed online for a Dell mini. After 100 hours jumping through hoops and going in circles, I never received any real support from Toshiba - just headaches. After a decade and a half of being a satisfied Toshiba customer, this experience has been so atrocious that I will never buy another Toshiba again. The changes were done before I found this forum and it certainly don't seem like they resolved the issue. Although not disabling the defrag on a SSD for a stock setting by Toshiba leads me to believe that my issue is related to Toshiba/SSD/Windows 7, but I wonder if I will ever find the right key to unlocking the power of what these should all be capable of.
Is it worthwhile to run another report or anything? Just wondering why everything seems to be slow. If not, wait for the next program to spontaneously stop responding and run another report then?
Well, this was a funny session (if I didn’t laugh at it, I would cry). I've put my laptop into hibernate a couple of times over the weekend, which shouldn’t pose an issue but maybe that led to the problems. First I attempted to eject my SD drive of pictures and I get the error that it can’t be stopped since something is still using it (even though everything is shutdown that was accessing it so there really isn’t anything using it). Then, I saved some files to the desktop and I couldn’t see them. First, the F5 (refresh) made them appear. Then, when it happened again, it didn’t work and I had to right click on the desktop and select refresh that way to get them to appear. Neither one of these was an app crash but I thought I would run the report to post with my message just for kicks if it would help. Then, in the process of saving the system health report, that app crashed. I had to rerun the system health report several times before I could actually get the file to save. So, I’ve zipped the data files, the report that I was finally able to save, and a screen shot with the system health app crash message and for kicks the error message of trying to stop the SD drive. In the process of trying to get this out, I also had an initial Word “not responding” in the top bar of the document when I tried to save a file, but then it eventually clicked and saved the doc.
So, what do you think – is this computer just junk or what? Why does the perfmon report state that I don’t have antivirus software? And, if you don’t see a crash of an app this time around, why is it failing to capture the crash? Thanks in advance!
I ran the EXE and sys health rep before shutting down and after... see attachment. Don't know if it will help you make an assessment. After shutting down, things with auto-refresh are working normal again.
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