Windows 7 Constant Hard Drive Activity - Computer Slow to Respond

Faladu said:

Wipe out your pagefile settings too for a bit: no page file, I would not want you having multiple ones, and especially one on the same hard drive windows is on, unless unavoidable. (typical laptop scenario)
8000+ page file is unnecessary, I would min/max like 2048 later. Never letting Windows control it.

What happens with min/max same, the same sectors are set as that pagefile and it will never change (unless you change it) so it's best to have the HD defragged ahead of this so it's all contiguous sectors that get written/read saving wear and tear on the head from jumping around all over the place, of course if it's a SSD, you don't want to ever defrag those.

If you are totally at your wits end, I would last resort try Optimal settings in your BIOS (of course make note of what you are using now, before doing this) Good info to have on hand any way and pretty hard to have all memorized.

But that's after doing others suggestions also, I am a big wipe and drop fan myself, but I know what I am doing, but hate it now because I have 2 companies I have to email and get new codes for their programs every stinking time I wipe and drop.

Guess I'll be trying your page file suggestion next!

No idea what you mean by "OPTIMAL settings in your BIOS". I know how to get into the BIOS but have no experience with "tweaking" there.

C.

Faladu said:

Wipe out your pagefile settings too for a bit: no page file, I would not want you having multiple ones, and especially one on the same hard drive windows is on, unless unavoidable. (typical laptop scenario)
8000+ page file is unnecessary, I would min/max like 2048 later. Never letting Windows control it.

Applied the pagefile steps you mentioned. After doing this, boot time returned to the 2 minute range from the 8 - 9 minute range that was being experienced following the Kaspersky update. The original issue (heavy HD write activity and slow system response) continues to exist.

About to conclude that a clean install of Windows 7 as suggested above is the only option left for dealing with the issue. Until I get myself completely resigned to doing the clean install thing, I've decided to use the sleep function instead of shut-down/boot whever possible. This will minimize the impact of the issue unless something else (such as a Windows update) requires a shut-down/boot sequence.

Thx for the advice everyone has offered.

C.

New questions about my issue - I used Tracerpt to display information about one of the files
(C:\Windows\Prefetch\ReadyBoot\ReadyBoot.etl) that is shown by Windows Resource Monitor to be the object of much of the HD write activity that I see that slows down my machine for several minutes. Screenshot of ReadyBoot report attached.

The ReadyBoot report shows that ReadyBoot ran for over 9 minutes and is larger than 20M - this roughly coincides with the amount of time I see heavy HD write activity and computer slowdown.

So the questions:

1. What exactly is ReadyBoot and what does it do?
2. Can it be disabled - at least temporarily in order to see if it is the cause of my problem? If so, how is this done?

C.

My first post on here. Experiencing the exact same problem. Haven't done much to identify the cause. But the problem started right after my Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition upgraded itself to a new version.

Uninstalling Bitdefender hasn't solved the problem. After reading the whole post, I guess reinstalling windows is the only way of clearing this problem.

Tried selective startup as mentioned in the link, but the problem still persists.

Thanks anyways for the reply. :)

I did just have no problem with my PC, however this topic was interesting for me, and so I have looked a bit deeper and I found this topic here:

Disk Thrashing - disable ReadyBoot (not ReadyBoost)

There is an external link here:

Something else to disable on Win7 - ReadyBoot - Solid State Drives (SSD) - Storage Forums

which tells you how to turn it off ...once you do that, check in again and tell us how is your machine doing.

Also, I am having no problems on any of my machines, so whatever, just wanted to help ...even registered for that...

I respect is an old thread but thought I would chime in.

Same issue. I tracked it down to readyboot, which when I disable (Can be disabled in performance monitor data collection sets) it is auto reenabled by the next reboot. Interestingly windows 8 and 10 will disable it when a SSD is detected.

In my case as my boot drive is a SSD the pc boots fast, and I can login ok but the hdd/ssd activity is insane for usually between about 30 seconds and up to a couple of minutes. Microsoft sadly seem to have a thing for background tasks ever since vista launched.

So the guide Something else to disable on Win7 - ReadyBoot - Solid State Drives (SSD) - Storage Forums I can confirm is no good as windows 7 turns it back on.