Vista - High HDD Activity after Startup

After I have logged into my account, I have my statup entries load fine.
After AVG and MSN etc have loaded, the HDD activity seems to be constant for
2-3 minutes afterwards. During this time, if I look at the Reliability and
Performance Monitor for Disk, I see loads of files randomly on there, like
system files, some program files like Office and the odd document I have. The
IO priority is Background during this time. After 2-3 minutes, the HDD
activity goes back down to normal which is every few seconds it would flash a
little. The IO status would change to Normal and the number of files that are
being monitored by the HDD drops a lot.

What is this? It happened when I start the computer, just after the startup
entries have loaded. I don't remember this happening before.

I tried making this question topic before but couldn't see the post so I
re-wrote it, if people have responded in the other and it actually exists,
then ignore this.

"Gideon_CC" <GideonCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5C64B66B-9E19-453A-A17B-D7C83BF8367F@microsoft.com...
> After I have logged into my account, I have my statup entries load fine.
> After AVG and MSN etc have loaded, the HDD activity seems to be constant
> for
> 2-3 minutes afterwards. During this time, if I look at the Reliability and
> Performance Monitor for Disk, I see loads of files randomly on there, like
> system files, some program files like Office and the odd document I have.
> The
> IO priority is Background during this time. After 2-3 minutes, the HDD
> activity goes back down to normal which is every few seconds it would
> flash a
> little. The IO status would change to Normal and the number of files that
> are
> being monitored by the HDD drops a lot.
>
> What is this? It happened when I start the computer, just after the
> startup
> entries have loaded. I don't remember this happening before.
>
> I tried making this question topic before but couldn't see the post so I
> re-wrote it, if people have responded in the other and it actually exists,
> then ignore this.


I would say this is just Vista loading the RAM up etc.... with the
SuperFetch stuff. This is a good thing.

--
Can't think of a sig at the moment.
Read this instead.

I found that Windows Defender is set to do a quick scan at 2 am so it may be
because of that. I disabled it but I am not sure if it is the real reason. I
will turn off and on machine later and see. Otherwise, I am not sure, maybe
it is prefetch but it does it every time.

"Lord Takyon" wrote:

> "Gideon_CC" <GideonCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5C64B66B-9E19-453A-A17B-D7C83BF8367F@microsoft.com...
> > After I have logged into my account, I have my statup entries load fine.
> > After AVG and MSN etc have loaded, the HDD activity seems to be constant
> > for
> > 2-3 minutes afterwards. During this time, if I look at the Reliability and
> > Performance Monitor for Disk, I see loads of files randomly on there, like
> > system files, some program files like Office and the odd document I have.
> > The
> > IO priority is Background during this time. After 2-3 minutes, the HDD
> > activity goes back down to normal which is every few seconds it would
> > flash a
> > little. The IO status would change to Normal and the number of files that
> > are
> > being monitored by the HDD drops a lot.
> >
> > What is this? It happened when I start the computer, just after the
> > startup
> > entries have loaded. I don't remember this happening before.
> >
> > I tried making this question topic before but couldn't see the post so I
> > re-wrote it, if people have responded in the other and it actually exists,
> > then ignore this.
>
>
> I would say this is just Vista loading the RAM up etc.... with the
> SuperFetch stuff. This is a good thing.
>
> --
> Can't think of a sig at the moment.
> Read this instead.
>
>

"Gideon_CC" <GideonCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8C5537B6-5D1D-4AF8-A73B-BDDA94571A95@microsoft.com...
>I found that Windows Defender is set to do a quick scan at 2 am so it may
>be
> because of that. I disabled it but I am not sure if it is the real reason.
> I
> will turn off and on machine later and see. Otherwise, I am not sure,
> maybe
> it is prefetch but it does it every time.
>
> "Lord Takyon" wrote:
>
>> "Gideon_CC" <GideonCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:5C64B66B-9E19-453A-A17B-D7C83BF8367F@microsoft.com...
>> > After I have logged into my account, I have my statup entries load
>> > fine.
>> > After AVG and MSN etc have loaded, the HDD activity seems to be
>> > constant
>> > for
>> > 2-3 minutes afterwards. During this time, if I look at the Reliability
>> > and
>> > Performance Monitor for Disk, I see loads of files randomly on there,
>> > like
>> > system files, some program files like Office and the odd document I
>> > have.
>> > The
>> > IO priority is Background during this time. After 2-3 minutes, the HDD
>> > activity goes back down to normal which is every few seconds it would
>> > flash a
>> > little. The IO status would change to Normal and the number of files
>> > that
>> > are
>> > being monitored by the HDD drops a lot.
>> >
>> > What is this? It happened when I start the computer, just after the
>> > startup
>> > entries have loaded. I don't remember this happening before.
>> >
>> > I tried making this question topic before but couldn't see the post so
>> > I
>> > re-wrote it, if people have responded in the other and it actually
>> > exists,
>> > then ignore this.
>>
>>
>> I would say this is just Vista loading the RAM up etc.... with the
>> SuperFetch stuff. This is a good thing.
>>
>> --
>> Can't think of a sig at the moment.
>> Read this instead.
>>
>>


It would have too, RAM is volatile and loses all data stored when the power
is removed. TBH I would not worry about it, my copy does this, as do all
the others I have seen so far.

--
Can't think of a sig at the moment.
Read this instead.

You can use Process Monitor to see what's going on.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx

It doesn't seem to be Defender now.

It still happenas every time windows finishes loading and it happened very
briefly again a few minutes later but for shorter period of time.

A screen shot: http://www.tezmania.com/mypc/start.jpg
Hundeds of things like the above show in that and then suddently after 2-3
mins, the IO Priority drops to Normal and then the number goes down gradually.

"Ian D" wrote:

> You can use Process Monitor to see what's going on.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx
>
>
>

Gideon_CC wrote:
> It doesn't seem to be Defender now.
>
> It still happenas every time windows finishes loading and it happened very
> briefly again a few minutes later but for shorter period of time.
>
> A screen shot: http://www.tezmania.com/mypc/start.jpg
> Hundeds of things like the above show in that and then suddently after 2-3
> mins, the IO Priority drops to Normal and then the number goes down gradually.
>
> "Ian D" wrote:
>
>> You can use Process Monitor to see what's going on.
>>
>> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx
>>
>>
>>


Double click "Computer" and right click>properties for the drive(s).

If "Index this drive for faster searching" is checked try unchecking that.

This screwed my system pretty badly so worth a try. Please post back if
there's any improvement so others can benefit.

Charlie

"Gideon_CC" <GideonCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:AE5FB86F-B6CB-4A43-B0A4-AAD36C95CAEB@microsoft.com...
> It doesn't seem to be Defender now.
>
> It still happenas every time windows finishes loading and it happened very
> briefly again a few minutes later but for shorter period of time.
>
> A screen shot: http://www.tezmania.com/mypc/start.jpg
> Hundeds of things like the above show in that and then suddently after 2-3
> mins, the IO Priority drops to Normal and then the number goes down
> gradually.
>
> "Ian D" wrote:
>
>> You can use Process Monitor to see what's going on.
>>
>> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx


That looks normal. It's probably superfetch working. If you want track it
down further, get take the PID for the svchost processes accessing the
files, open task manager locate the svchost by PID, right click, Go to
service(s). That will show the services running under those instances of
svchost. Track it down from there.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

When I first got the machine, I unticked "Index my files for faster searching".
I tracked the PID down to 980 mostly and 896.

980 had:
Superfetch
Portable Desktop Manager Session Manager
Portable Device Emumerator Service
Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework

896 had:
Windows Defender

I timed it and after around 2 and a half minutes, the HDD activity goes down
to normal and then the processes change from IO Background to Normal and then
most of the processes go.

"Rock" wrote:

> "Gideon_CC" <GideonCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:AE5FB86F-B6CB-4A43-B0A4-AAD36C95CAEB@microsoft.com...
> > It doesn't seem to be Defender now.
> >
> > It still happenas every time windows finishes loading and it happened very
> > briefly again a few minutes later but for shorter period of time.
> >
> > A screen shot: http://www.tezmania.com/mypc/start.jpg
> > Hundeds of things like the above show in that and then suddently after 2-3
> > mins, the IO Priority drops to Normal and then the number goes down
> > gradually.
> >
> > "Ian D" wrote:
> >
> >> You can use Process Monitor to see what's going on.
> >>
> >> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx
>
>
> That looks normal. It's probably superfetch working. If you want track it
> down further, get take the PID for the svchost processes accessing the
> files, open task manager locate the svchost by PID, right click, Go to
> service(s). That will show the services running under those instances of
> svchost. Track it down from there.
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
>
>

Sorry ignore that, I missed out a few on the 980 one. Here the full post
again with the correct services.

When I first got the machine, I unticked "Index my files for faster
searching".
I tracked the PID down to 980 mostly and 896.

980 had:
Superfetch
Portable Desktop Manager Session Manager
Portable Device Emumerator Service
Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework
Program Compatibility Assistant Service
Network Connections
Windows Audio Endpoint Builder

896 had:
Windows Defender

I timed it and after around 2 and a half minutes, the HDD activity goes down
to normal and then the processes change from IO Background to Normal and then
most of the processes go.


"Gideon_CC" wrote:

> When I first got the machine, I unticked "Index my files for faster searching".
> I tracked the PID down to 980 mostly and 896.
>
> 980 had:
> Superfetch
> Portable Desktop Manager Session Manager
> Portable Device Emumerator Service
> Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework
>
> 896 had:
> Windows Defender
>
> I timed it and after around 2 and a half minutes, the HDD activity goes down
> to normal and then the processes change from IO Background to Normal and then
> most of the processes go.
>
> "Rock" wrote:
>
> > "Gideon_CC" <GideonCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:AE5FB86F-B6CB-4A43-B0A4-AAD36C95CAEB@microsoft.com...
> > > It doesn't seem to be Defender now.
> > >
> > > It still happenas every time windows finishes loading and it happened very
> > > briefly again a few minutes later but for shorter period of time.
> > >
> > > A screen shot: http://www.tezmania.com/mypc/start.jpg
> > > Hundeds of things like the above show in that and then suddently after 2-3
> > > mins, the IO Priority drops to Normal and then the number goes down
> > > gradually.
> > >
> > > "Ian D" wrote:
> > >
> > >> You can use Process Monitor to see what's going on.
> > >>
> > >> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx
> >
> >
> > That looks normal. It's probably superfetch working. If you want track it
> > down further, get take the PID for the svchost processes accessing the
> > files, open task manager locate the svchost by PID, right click, Go to
> > service(s). That will show the services running under those instances of
> > svchost. Track it down from there.
> >
> > --
> > Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
> >
> >