T61 Vista HD keep spinning

[skythinkers]

hi,
My T61 with Vista Business keep spinning after windows startup, it's take more than 15 minutes before it's stop. Called Lenovo, it's no help at all, any idea why, thanks?

[mgo]

hi,
My T61 with Vista Business keep spinning after windows startup, it's take more than 15 minutes before it's stop. Called Lenovo, it's no help at all, any idea why, thanks?

If this is a new Vista installation, it may be the indexer running. In time that will be completed.

Check your indexing options and make sure it is not trying to index items that you do not care about. For example, I have indexer scan my written documents, but I have deselected the 24,000 photos I have in one of my folders.

SuperFetch, which helps programs load faster also takes a while to set itself up and learn your habits.

Defragmenter will often run a lot at first till it gets itself caught up.

[skythinkers]

It's not new install but i can't find any working working process in task manager. Will it show up while indexing? But it's sound like what you said. Will this related to AVG antivirus too?

many thanks

[skythinkers]

I disabled the Index function on my HD but it's still the same. What can i do next? thanks

[mgo]

I disabled the Index function on my HD but it's still the same. What can i do next? thanks

AVG may have an option to not scan your drives, but just to keep a watch out for incoming malware. Try disabling the scan and check the results.

How did you disable indexing? The best way is to simply uncheck drives in indexing options. By the way, if you do that, indexing will continue to run a lot while it refreshes itself. Soon it will stop.

It's easy for me to get all concerned about background processes....usually, the Microsoft processes will run a lot at first then then ease off after a while, once they are completed.

Did all this disk thrashing just start recently?

If you really want to dig a little deeper, download "process explorer" and "autoruns". The author is well known and respected, and those are solid applets. Just Google the names for those freeware apps.

[skythinkers]

Yes, I unchecked the index in drive properties and uninstall AVG, defragmented the drive, it's still the same. I found this problem when i first received this thinkpad. I'm using my T60 with XP normally and finally use this T61, i'm not good in Vista, so no idea it's software or hardware issue. Ran all IBM tests, it's seem hardware ok, just wonder there is problem on my Vista business.

I used Thinkpads for 15 years and I really thing their support is suck now. I called couples times on couple issues in my t60/t61, they can never solve any problems. Being a thinkpad lover, I really feel shame on them.

[mgo]

Yes, I unchecked the index in drive properties and uninstall AVG, defragmented the drive, it's still the same. I found this problem when i first received this thinkpad. I'm using my T60 with XP normally and finally use this T61, i'm not good in Vista, so no idea it's software or hardware issue. Ran all IBM tests, it's seem hardware ok, just wonder there is problem on my Vista business.

I used Thinkpads for 15 years and I really thing their support is suck now. I called couples times on couple issues in my t60/t61, they can never solve any problems. Being a thinkpad lover, I really feel shame on them.

Drive properties is not really a good place to uncheck indexing. If I remember that relates to the -old- indexing.

Use Start and type index and at the top of the menu you will see Indexing Options. This is the control to properly configure Vista's indexing. Within that menu you will see Modify. Click that to get to the specific locations that are indexed. There you can select or unselect your desired folders to be indexed. You will be asked to right click Run As Admin. Stay out of Advanced unless you want to make a lot of extra work for yourself.

Leave the Users folder checked in your C: drive just to give indexing something to do or it may complain at you about "no indexing". The Users folder is rather small and will not require a lot of activity during indexing.

Keep in mind that the indexer "refreshes" itself every time you re-boot. Because of that the drive will thrash for a while after every re-start. (rather stupid, but that's Microsoft, I guess)

I assume you do not have any other indexers on board, like Google desktop or Copernic.

[Marin85]

It is a wide-spread myth that Vista indexing causes the well-observed continuous HD activity after Vista startup. While it certainly produces some not insignificant I/O activity (loading the Catalyst driver is actually heavier to the system than indexing ) , the real reason for that HD activity is the revised prefetch/superfetch feature introduced with Vista. On all my Vista machines I have turned prefetch/superfetch off for the simple reason that it doesn´t work the way it is supposed or expected to and thus yields only disadvantages:
1. With prefetch/superfetch turned on there is no performance improvement even after months of work (so the system has enough time to study user´s habbits), i.e. no improvement in applications launch and accomplishing common tasks and so on.
2. Prefetch/superfecth feature causes ridiculous continuous HD activity after Vista startup which adds another couple of minutes of system non-operationability (sry for that word ) and thus being contra-productive... Not to mention the fact that the long wait time for the system to be up and the poor system responsiveness during this HD activity make most users pretty nervous but that is probably a simple fact that doesn´t seem to occur to those who designed Vista OS...
Now to the important part, namely how to turn off this M$ freak:
1. You will have to disable the corresponding service: windows key -> services.msc -> Superfetch -> disable it
2. Unfortunately, just disabling the service won´t fully disable the prefetch/superfetch feature, hence you will have to make small changes to the registry: windows key -> regedit -> navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefechParameters -> Set EnablePrefetcher and EnableSuperfetch from 3 to 0.
You are done. Disclaimer: editing the registry may harm your system in a way that you may have to reinstall the OS, so do it on your own risk

Enjoy

Marin

EDIT: some grammer

[mgo]

the real reason for that HD activity is the revised prefetch/superfetch feature introduced with Vista. On all my Vista machines I have turned prefetch/superfetch off for the simple reason that it doesn´t work the way it is supposed or expected to and thus yields only disadvantages:[/b]

Enjoy

Marin

EDIT: some grammer

How very interesting! I have saved your instructions and will see how this hack works for me.

Since I am running MS Office 2007 and some other hungry apps it will be fun to see how quickly they load without Super and Pre fetch...

Thanks for sharing the information!

[Marin85]

Since I am running MS Office 2007 and some other hungry apps it will be fun to see how quickly they load without Super and Prefetch...

I agree that would be interesting though I´m quite sceptical right now A two questions:
- How long since the last install of Vista?
- What other "hungry" applications are you running?
A word processor isn´t actually supposed to be a "hungry" application but M$ has been always very well doing at setting new dimensions... Anyway, in fact the prefetch/superfetch feature was designed with a primer forethought to M$ products like M$ Office, but it seems to have failed even in this point...
Just a speculation of mine: I think prefetch/superfetch doesn´t make a difference if one has a fast HD like Hitachi 7K200 or Seagata 7200.3. But with a slow HD (like my previous Toshiba 120 GB 5400rom) I believe this Vista feature could make a difference after a couple of days of use and it seems even reasonable to sacrifice a few additional minutes after boot in order to have a nice responsive system for work afterwards. The reason why I mention this is because this thread also reminded me of a short period before I upgraded from my Toshiba to a 7200rpm drive when I had Lenovo Vista image installed on my ThinkPad and I can remember how much I was surprised with its nice performance compared to my previous Lenovo XP image...

Marin

[Marin85]

BTW, if you wonder where my "hacks" come from, these are simply the default settings of Windows Server 2008 w.r.t. prefetch/superfetch functionality

Marin

[skythinkers]

Thanks, it doesn't work BUT it work when i recovery thinkpad again. It's nice and good now. By the way, do we need to uncheck the harddrive INDEX property?

Thanks

[Marin85]

Thanks, it doesn't work BUT it work when i recovery thinkpad again. It's nice and good now. By the way, do we need to uncheck the harddrive INDEX property?

Thanks

I see, I forgot to mention that I always disable prefetch/superfetch right after the fresh install of Vista and before installing and running anything else. Thus Vista doesn´t cache anything. I think you can leave indexing as it is because:
1. it really improves your search speed , especially if you have a plenty of data on your HD (like pics, music or ebooks collections).
2. its activity adjusts according to the user activity, it doesn´t want to disturb your work.
Indexing is really active after Vista startup only after the first few reboots or only if you have copied a large amount of data onto your HD and rebooted afterwards, thus no time for the indexing service to finish its job after the copying.

Marin