Hard disk always active and computer is very slow

squall leonhart said:

This depends on the SATA/IDE controller in use, can you post what is listed under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers?

There you go:




By the way, how to I use the UBCD after I load it?

I had a similar issue and traced it to being multiple AV and antispyware. It seemed like there was some contention between them, and hte drive was just constantly churning. It seems that the antispyware apps are doing more "real time" scanning now whereas before they just scanned when you ran them. I uninstalled all of them, and just loaded MS Security Essentials and it is fine now.

Desslok said:

I had a similar issue and traced it to being multiple AV and antispyware. It seemed like there was some contention between them, and hte drive was just constantly churning. It seems that the antispyware apps are doing more "real time" scanning now whereas before they just scanned when you ran them. I uninstalled all of them, and just loaded MS Security Essentials and it is fine now.

As far as I know, NOD32 real time protection works only when you save, open, execute files or browse to a website with harmful content.

Other the NOD32, I don't have real time 3rd party app protection running. I run them when I need them. Only Windows Defender loads on startup.

If you open task manager and click resource monitor in performance task, you can see which apps are using your disk and which files they're accessing and also CPU and ethernet usage. Windows search, indexing service, superfetch, scheduled defragmentation, scheduled system restore, other scheduled tasks (check in Task scheduler) are some common culprits. Try disabling them one by one to see if it helps, then reenable the ones you want to keep.

The following services/scheduled tasks are disabled from day one:
Indexing
defrag

I have cleanmem running every 30 mintues. I use some of black-viper's recommended settings for happier computer. Disabling unwanted services.

How do I use UBCD?

CleanMem?

get rid of it, such apps completely mess up the memory management on windows.

The properties for each IDE Channel will state whether DMA/UDMA or PIO is used on the Advanced Settings Tab.

following on Bill2's advice, SysInternals contains several utilities which can help find out what processes are spamming the drive.

squall leonhart said:

CleanMem?

get rid of it, such apps completely mess up the memory management on windows.

The properties for each IDE Channel will state whether DMA/UDMA or PIO is used on the Advanced Settings Tab.

following on Bill2's advice, SysInternals contains several utilities which can help find out what processes are spamming the drive.

Cleanmem actually does a good job.
Regardless, what exactly should I first disable? Can you please give me detailed steps so I can produce clearer summery?

Thanks for the help so far :)

not disable, you should ensure all the Sata channels are running with DMA enabled, Multiword DMA 2 for optical drives, and Ultra DMA 5 or higher for HDD's.

squall leonhart said:

not disable, you should ensure all the Sata channels are running with DMA enabled, Multiword DMA 2 for optical drives, and Ultra DMA 5 or higher for HDD's.

Where's can I find it? I looked in Device Manager and I didn't see such thing.

Its in the properties for the ATA Channels.