??Norton SpeedDisk and XP defrag???

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom Wilson
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T

Tom Wilson

I'm running XP on an older Gateway450 with a 40gb
drive "C" and the original 13gb drive as "D". I don't
use "D" at all. Norton SpeedDisk in Systemworks 2004
runs about 8 to 10 hours to optimize "C". I find about
42 processes running in task manager and want to turn
some off to help shorten the Optimization time in
SpeedDisk. I think these processes running really saps
the CPU. I don't know which ones I can turn off without
causing a problem. How can I find which processes can be
turned off so the CPU can run faster? I used to do this
with Windows98 but can I do the same with XP? Would Safe
Mode accomplish the same thing? Would running XP defrag
and SpeedDisk concurrently cause a problem? Sorry this
is so long.
 
Sounds like you have a lot of spyware. Try running
adaware on your machine prior to optimizing. You will be
surprised.
 
-----Original Message-----
Sounds like you have a lot of spyware. Try running
adaware on your machine prior to optimizing. You will be
Click to expand...

I do have Spybot and ran that, it did speed up a little.
It's still all those applicatons running that bother me
and want to know how to turn unessential ones off.
 
Having 42 or 27 or 35 (as I do) processes running is not any mandatory cause
for alarm. It does not mean there are 35 "programs" running and it certainly
does not mean that there is "spyware" running in the background or anywhere
else on your system just because "somebody" thinks 42 or 35 or whatever
number "seems high to them"

Running SpyBot or AdAware is a good way to determine if there are malicious
programs running. For the most part users are way too paranoid and this is
the reason that some will incorrectly say that if you have "42 processes
running" that it "sounds like spyware" to them. That is a load of
crapola....

If SpyBot and AdAware (with up-to-date reference files)give you a clean
report and an AV scan (with current ref files)
does also you are OK

--

Charlie in Mississippi
(driftin' blues player and gospel picker)
 
I'm running XP on an older Gateway450 with a 40gb
drive "C" and the original 13gb drive as "D". I don't
use "D" at all. Norton SpeedDisk in Systemworks 2004
runs about 8 to 10 hours to optimize "C". I find about
42 processes running in task manager and want to turn
some off to help shorten the Optimization time in
SpeedDisk. I think these processes running really saps
the CPU. I don't know which ones I can turn off without
causing a problem. How can I find which processes can be
turned off so the CPU can run faster? I used to do this
with Windows98 but can I do the same with XP? Would Safe
Mode accomplish the same thing? Would running XP defrag
and SpeedDisk concurrently cause a problem? Sorry this
is so long.
Click to expand...

Tom,

BlackViper has a website which lists the services in XP.
http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/OSguides.htm

If the problem process are not services, see how they startup. I use
Process Explorer (http://www.sysinternals.com/) to checkout each
process in detail, and Startup Control Panel (http://www.mlin.net/) to
enable and disable each when necessary. Both are free.

Have you checked for spyware? Spybot S&D and HijackThis are both
free, and with help from SWI Forums very effective. Start here:
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showtopic=5187

I wonder though if your problem is really the cpu. Have you checked
Task Manager to see if cpu usage is peaking?

SpeedDisk on a 450 with a 40G hard drive could take a while, if you
have little memory and the 40G is overutilised. What is your
utilisation percent? Your fragmentation percent? How much memory do
you have? 512M is what experience recommends, regardless of M$
statements.

I have a 450 desktop - it originally had 256M RAM and an 8G hard drive
which ran about 90% utilised. When I ran SpeedDisk, it was like
you're experiencing - 6 - 12 hours to run. :(

One day the hard drive stopped working. I got a new hard drive - 80G
- and partitioned it. 10G operating system, 10G applications,
remainder data. I added another 256M RAM too. It now takes 15 - 30
minutes to defrag each partition. :)

Cheers,

Chuck
I hate spam - PLEASE get rid of the spam before emailing me!
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
 
-----Original Message-----


Tom,

BlackViper has a website which lists the services in XP.
http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/OSguides.htm

If the problem process are not services, see how they startup. I use
Process Explorer (http://www.sysinternals.com/) to checkout each
process in detail, and Startup Control Panel
Click to expand...
(http://www.mlin.net/) to
enable and disable each when necessary. Both are free.

Have you checked for spyware? Spybot S&D and HijackThis are both
free, and with help from SWI Forums very effective. Start here:
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showtopic=5187

I wonder though if your problem is really the cpu. Have you checked
Task Manager to see if cpu usage is peaking?

SpeedDisk on a 450 with a 40G hard drive could take a while, if you
have little memory and the 40G is overutilised. What is your
utilisation percent? Your fragmentation percent? How much memory do
you have? 512M is what experience recommends, regardless of M$
statements.

I have a 450 desktop - it originally had 256M RAM and an 8G hard drive
which ran about 90% utilised. When I ran SpeedDisk, it was like
you're experiencing - 6 - 12 hours to run. :(

One day the hard drive stopped working. I got a new hard drive - 80G
- and partitioned it. 10G operating system, 10G applications,
remainder data. I added another 256M RAM too. It now takes 15 - 30
minutes to defrag each partition. :)

Cheers,

Chuck
I hate spam - PLEASE get rid of the spam before emailing me!
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
.
THANKS, Chuck for the leads and tips. I'll certainly
Click to expand...
give them a try. I'm running 256mb Ram, about half the
disk is utilized, I run Spybot frequently and before
trying to optimize. And the CPU looks like it's fairly
maxed out so I think cutting off some of those useless /
unneeded processes would help.
 
I just counted 52 processes running on my PC, and I check regularly for
spyware. XP likes to run a lot of procses.

Norton Speedisk runs in minutes on any partition, but I run it often, about
once a week. Further, I have a faster PC (2.5Gig P4, 1Gig PC2700 RAM,
533MHz bus, SATA/150 disks).

Before blaming those processes, check to see whether they are actually
sucking much CPU time. When I do a single CTRL-ALT-DEl to invoke the XP
task manager, it usually shows "system idle process" running above 95%,
meaning that the CPU is only 5% used. If I were to run a defrag, it would
use most of theose free CPU cycles.

Safe mode is one way to stop many processes, without accidentally stopping
important ones.

Other things to disable (at least temporarily) are the virus checker,
indexing service, scanner proceses (like hplamp.exe).

Checking for and removing spyware is a good idea, in general, but may not
help your situation. But, it won't hurt either. Spyboot Search and Destroy
is a good free program.

Norton allows you set some preferences on what files go where. Ask it to
put frequently changed files last, such as temporary internet files,
prefetch files, maybe all of Documents and Settings, etc. As time passes
this should get most non-changing files toward the front of the disk, so
each time defrag will need to do less work.

Other things that can help are to do a disk cleanup before the defrag.
Remember to manually empty the Norton protected recycle bin, if you use one.
Even consider using the advanced options under disk cleanup (XP not Norton)
to erase all system restore images except the last one. (Do not erase
restore images, unless the PC is running well.)
 
give them a try. I'm running 256mb Ram, about half the
disk is utilized, I run Spybot frequently and before
trying to optimize. And the CPU looks like it's fairly
maxed out so I think cutting off some of those useless /
unneeded processes would help.
Click to expand...

Tom,

If the CPU is maxed out, disabling unneeded processes is a good idea.
Particularly if some of them are spyware.

But if you have only 256M RAM, add another 256M. Please. Most
experienced XP users agree - 512M RAM is minimum amount for
performance. I'd bet anything that SpeedDisk is memory intensive -
think about what it's doing. Add RAM.

Cheers,

Chuck
I hate spam - PLEASE get rid of the spam before emailing me!
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
 
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