What could cause a Vista Home Premium PC to run very slowly and with 
constant disk thrashing?

The spec is:

- Intel Core Duo 2 T5250 12.5 GHz CPU
- 1024 MB RAM (shouldn't this be plenty?)
- loads of free disk space (at least 50 GB)

I've done an AdAware 2007 scan and can't see any spyware. Likewise I've done 
an AVG scan - no viruses.

As originally supplied it had Windows Wanker (I mean Windows One Care) 
installed, but the customer asked me to remove this and replace it with 
AVG/AdAware (+Windows Firewall) when its trial subscription was about to 
expire. The PC ran equally slowly both with and without OneCare.

Task Manager is showing:

Physical Memory

- Total = 1013
- Cached = 204
- Free = 0 (CAUSE FOR CONCERN?)

System

- Page File 1320/2278

Memory Graph

- hovers around 860 which is about 7/8 of the full-scale value


Processor usage is low (0 - 5% typically) when the PC is idle after booting.


The Resource program linked to from Task Manger shows Memory and Disk 
running at 100% on the blue line and fluctuating wildly around 40-80% on the 
green line. (What's the significance of the blue and green lines - it's not 
explained on the page)?


I can't seen any software that should not be there, either in Add/Remove 
Programs or in the Run sections of the Registry.



What else should I be looking for which could give a clue as to why the PC 
is running so slowly with constant disk thrashing?

On an XP PC I'd defrag the HDD just in case it had got badly fragmented (odd 
in a PC that is only 3 months old and has only been used for web browsing, 
email and a little light word-processing) but that's not an option on Vista 
as you can't explicitly defrag the disk, only set it to do background 
defragging as and when it feels like it.

"Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote in message 
news:13qraj1i3hp5efc@corp.supernews.com...
> What could cause a Vista Home Premium PC to run very slowly and with 
> constant disk thrashing?
>
> The spec is:
>
> - Intel Core Duo 2 T5250 12.5 GHz CPU
> - 1024 MB RAM (shouldn't this be plenty?)
> - loads of free disk space (at least 50 GB)
>
> I've done an AdAware 2007 scan and can't see any spyware. Likewise I've 
> done an AVG scan - no viruses.
>
> As originally supplied it had Windows Wanker (I mean Windows One Care) 
> installed, but the customer asked me to remove this and replace it with 
> AVG/AdAware (+Windows Firewall) when its trial subscription was about to 
> expire. The PC ran equally slowly both with and without OneCare.
>
> Task Manager is showing:
>
> Physical Memory
>
> - Total = 1013
> - Cached = 204
> - Free = 0 (CAUSE FOR CONCERN?)
>
> System
>
> - Page File 1320/2278
>
> Memory Graph
>
> - hovers around 860 which is about 7/8 of the full-scale value
>
>
> Processor usage is low (0 - 5% typically) when the PC is idle after 
> booting.
>
>
> The Resource program linked to from Task Manger shows Memory and Disk 
> running at 100% on the blue line and fluctuating wildly around 40-80% on 
> the green line. (What's the significance of the blue and green lines - 
> it's not explained on the page)?
>
>
> I can't seen any software that should not be there, either in Add/Remove 
> Programs or in the Run sections of the Registry.
>
>
>
> What else should I be looking for which could give a clue as to why the PC 
> is running so slowly with constant disk thrashing?
>
> On an XP PC I'd defrag the HDD just in case it had got badly fragmented 
> (odd in a PC that is only 3 months old and has only been used for web 
> browsing, email and a little light word-processing) but that's not an 
> option on Vista as you can't explicitly defrag the disk, only set it to do 
> background defragging as and when it feels like it.

Does the problem continue ad infinitum...?

If it only happens for approximately the first 10 minutes after switching 
on, this is a common problem with Vista and there are lots of internet 
articles about it and how you can improve things - to a degree...

If it continues endlessly, then obviously there is something more seriously 
wrong.

V

PS 2GB of RAM would probably help to start with.

"Victor Delta"  wrote in message 
news:foknk5$pul$1@aioe.org...
> "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote in message 
> news:13qraj1i3hp5efc@corp.supernews.com...
>> What could cause a Vista Home Premium PC to run very slowly and with 
>> constant disk thrashing?
>>
>> The spec is:
>>
>> - Intel Core Duo 2 T5250 12.5 GHz CPU
>> - 1024 MB RAM (shouldn't this be plenty?)
>> - loads of free disk space (at least 50 GB)
>>
>> I've done an AdAware 2007 scan and can't see any spyware. Likewise I've 
>> done an AVG scan - no viruses.
>>
>> As originally supplied it had Windows Wanker (I mean Windows One Care) 
>> installed, but the customer asked me to remove this and replace it with 
>> AVG/AdAware (+Windows Firewall) when its trial subscription was about to 
>> expire. The PC ran equally slowly both with and without OneCare.
>>
>> Task Manager is showing:
>>
>> Physical Memory
>>
>> - Total = 1013
>> - Cached = 204
>> - Free = 0 (CAUSE FOR CONCERN?)
>>
>> System
>>
>> - Page File 1320/2278
>>
>> Memory Graph
>>
>> - hovers around 860 which is about 7/8 of the full-scale value
>>
>>
>> Processor usage is low (0 - 5% typically) when the PC is idle after 
>> booting.
>>
>>
>> The Resource program linked to from Task Manger shows Memory and Disk 
>> running at 100% on the blue line and fluctuating wildly around 40-80% on 
>> the green line. (What's the significance of the blue and green lines - 
>> it's not explained on the page)?
>>
>>
>> I can't seen any software that should not be there, either in Add/Remove 
>> Programs or in the Run sections of the Registry.
>>
>>
>>
>> What else should I be looking for which could give a clue as to why the 
>> PC is running so slowly with constant disk thrashing?
>>
>> On an XP PC I'd defrag the HDD just in case it had got badly fragmented 
>> (odd in a PC that is only 3 months old and has only been used for web 
>> browsing, email and a little light word-processing) but that's not an 
>> option on Vista as you can't explicitly defrag the disk, only set it to 
>> do background defragging as and when it feels like it.
>
> Does the problem continue ad infinitum...?
>
> If it only happens for approximately the first 10 minutes after switching 
> on, this is a common problem with Vista and there are lots of internet 
> articles about it and how you can improve things - to a degree...
>
> If it continues endlessly, then obviously there is something more 
> seriously wrong.

It continues forever. I'm sure I'd have noticed if things quietened down 10 
mins after booting: I'm sure the PC was on for more than that time between 
one boot and the next.

> PS 2GB of RAM would probably help to start with.

Well I've seen plenty of other PCs run fine with 1 GB. Do the Task Manager 
results I've posted actually suggest that the PC is running out of memory? 
The process with the largest memory usage dwm.exe (desktop windows manager) 
which is using 42 MB.

In article , Martin Underwood 
says...
> What could cause a Vista Home Premium PC to run very slowly and with 
> constant disk thrashing?
> 
If it's a new install, it'll die down of its own accord in a couple of 
days.

If it's not a new install and running Business or Ultimate, turn off 
System Restore to disable the Volume Shadow Copy Service.

It could simply be the defragmenter or indexer running. 

-- 
Conor

As a Brit I'd like to thank the Americans for their help in the war 
against terror because if they'd not funded the IRA for 30 years, we 
wouldn't know how to deal with terrorists.

"Conor"  wrote in message 
news:616d9gF1tm9npU4@mid.individual.net...
> In article , Martin Underwood
> says...
>> What could cause a Vista Home Premium PC to run very slowly and with
>> constant disk thrashing?
>>
> If it's a new install, it'll die down of its own accord in a couple of
> days.
>
> If it's not a new install and running Business or Ultimate, turn off
> System Restore to disable the Volume Shadow Copy Service.
>
> It could simply be the defragmenter or indexer running.
>
> -- 
> Conor
>
> As a Brit I'd like to thank the Americans for their help in the war
> against terror because if they'd not funded the IRA for 30 years, we
> wouldn't know how to deal with terrorists.

As another Brit I'd like to thank the USA for their help in WWII. They 
came in a bit late (thanks Japan!) but they sure did an efficient job in 
Europe.
Unfortunately a few of their top brass pushed things a bit too far and 
started the Cold War.

Ed