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Hard disk drive light always on

Discussion in 'Windows 7' started by Daanii, 2014/10/17.

  1. 2014/10/17
    Daanii

    Daanii Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I have an Acer Aspire 1830-3595 with a 250 GB hard disk drive and an Intel i3 processor running Windows 7. It's a small laptop that I picked up refurbished a couple of years ago for less than $300, and I've definitely gotten my money's worth from this one.

    In the last couple of days the laptop runs, but very sluggishly. I've rebooted it a couple of times, and ran Malwarebytes twice. Nothing was found, and I can't see anything when I turn on Task Manager.

    But I did notice that the hard disk drive light goes on and stays on whenever I have a browser open. It doesn't flicker at all, just stays on steadily. I can't tell if the hard disk drive is actually operating the whole time, but I assume it is.

    The only thing unusual I've done lately is try to clone the hard drive to switch it to an SSD. The cloning did not work, unfortunately. There seems to be some sort of problem with the disk image. But I ran dskchk and only one minor fault was found and corrected.

    Any ideas on what the problem might be that causes it to run sluggishly? Or any diagnostics I could run?

    Thank you.

    UPDATE: I notice that the memory usage is quite high -- above 90% much of the time. Maybe data is being switched in and out of memory constantly. But I'm not sure what would cause memory usage to be so high. I haven't changed anything that would have caused that to increase.
     
    Last edited: 2014/10/17
  2. 2014/10/17
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    Hi Daanii, Have you run a Manufacturers Hard drive test? A refurbished unit may well have a HDD that's failing with age and trying to 'clone' it may have been the last straw. Neil.
     
    Daanii likes this.

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  4. 2014/10/17
    Evan Omo

    Evan Omo Computer Support Technician Staff

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    Hi Daanii.

    Lets see what is going on with your machine. Follow these steps to help make the computer run faster and more efficiently:

    1. Click Start< Control Panel< Uninstall a Program and uninstall any programs that you don't use.

    2. In Control Panel under Programs and Features click the link that says Turn Windows Features On or Off and uncheck all the checkboxes except for Games, Internet Explorer 8/9/10/11, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1, Windows Media Features, Windows Search, XPS Services and XPS Viewer. Then Expand the Windows Media Features category and uncheck Windows Media Center unless you use it but leave Windows Media Player and Windows DVD Maker checked. Click Ok when you are done and then click on the Restart Later button when prompted. (If you use a Windows Feature that is listed then don't uncheck its checkbox)

    3. Download and run ATF Cleaner. Save the program to your desktop. After the download completes, right click on the ATF Cleaner program and select Run as Administrator. When it opens select all the checkboxes in the program then hit the empty selected button.

    4. Run Disk Cleanup. Click Start< All Programs< Accessories< System Tools< Right click Disk Cleanup and select Run as Administrator. Once Disk Cleanup finishes calculating how much space it can free up make sure that all the checkboxes are selected. Once all of those checkboxes are selected click the More Options tab and under System Restore and Shadow Copies click the Cleanup button. Click Clean up to delete all of the old System Restore points. Once that's done click the Ok button to perform the requested actions and click Yes when prompted to allow Disk Cleanup to remove unnecessary files on the computer.

    5. Disable any Windows Services that you don't use by following Black Vipers Services Guide. After you have disabled the services that you don't need running, make sure to reboot the computer for the changes to take effect.

    6. Download and run Auslogics Disk Defrag. Make sure to uncheck any toolbars in the installation wizard as they are not needed. After the installation finishes open the program by right clicking on the Auslogics Disk Defrag shortcut and selecting Run As Administrator. When you open the program click on Settings< Defrag Priority and select High Priority. Then click on Settings< Program Settings< Algorithms Tab. Select the Delete temporary files before defragmenting checkbox and select the Move system files to the beginning on the disk checkbox. When done click Ok to close the Settings window. When you are ready to start the defragmentation process select the small down arrow next to the word Defrag and select the Defrag button. The process could take a long time so please be patient.

    7. Download and run Auslogics Registry Defrag. Make sure to uncheck any toolbars in the installation wizard as they are not needed. After the installation finishes, open the program by right clicking on the Auslogics Registry Defrag shortcut and selecting Run As Administrator. When the program opens click the Analyze button. When the process finishes analyzing click the Defrag Registry button followed by clicking the Restart button to finish the registry defrag process.

    8. Click Start< Right Click Computer and click Properties. In the System window click the Advanced System Settings button< In the System Properties window on the advanced tab under where it says Performance hit the settings button. In the Performance Options window click the Advanced tab and under Virtual Memory click the Change button. In the Virtual Memory window make sure your hard drive is selected and select the option that says System Managed Size and click the Set button. Now click Ok on the Virtual Memory window to close it. Now in the Performance Options window click the Data Execution Prevention tab and select the option that says Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select. After that's done click Ok on all the windows to close them out and then reboot the computer.

    9. You can disable the Windows Aero Interface if you don't care about all of the glass effects and clear borders for a speed improvement, Disable Aero on Windows 7 or Vista.

    10. Take a look at these simple tweaks to decrease the delay time when opening menus and to improve the shutdown time, How to Speed up the Menu Show Delay Time in Windows 7, How to Change the Mouse Hover Time before Pop-up Displays in Windows 7, Speed up Windows 7 Shutdown.

    11. If you find the secure desktop functionality in User Account Control annoying then you can disable it for a speed improvement, Make User Account Control (UAC) Stop Blacking Out the Screen in Windows 7 or Vista.

    12. Run Check Disk on the hard drive to repair any errors in the file system. To do this click Start< My Computer. Right click on your hard drive and click on Properties. Then once the hard drive properties dialog box opens, click on the Tools Tab. Under where it says Error-checking click on the Check Now button. Ensure that both the Automatically fix file system errors and the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors checkboxes are both checked. After that is done click on the Start button. Check Disk will ask you to schedule the disk check when you restart your computer. Click on yes to do this and then restart your computer to allow check disk to run.

    13. Click Start< All Programs< Accessories< Right click on Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator. The Command Prompt window will open. Paste the following command in the Command Prompt window and press enter, Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks. The process idle tasks process can take a few minutes to complete. Once it finishes you can close the Command Prompt window.

    14. Download MiniToolBox and save it to your desktop. Run the program and when the program opens check the following boxes:

    Flush DNS
    Reset FF proxy Settings
    Reset IE Proxy Settings
    Report IE Proxy Settings
    Report FF Proxy Settings
    List content of Hosts
    List IP configuration
    List Winsock Entries
    List last 10 Event Viewer log
    List Installed Programs
    List Users, Partitions and Memory size
    List Devices (problems only)


    Click the Go button and post the MiniToolBox log in your next reply.

    15. After that, please download AdwCleaner and save it to your desktop. Run the program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator. When the program opens click on the Scan button. Then when the program has finished scanning, click on the Clean button. The program will reboot the computer. Post the AdwCleaner log in your next reply.

    16. Next, download the Junkware Removal Tool and save it to your desktop. Run the program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator and post the JRT log in your next reply.

    17. Then download the Adware Removal Tool. Right click the program and select Run as administrator. When the program opens click on the Scan and Repair button. After that process completes a new window will open with items that the program found. Make sure all the items are selected and then click on the Remove button. The computer will be rebooted.

    18. Then, download HijackThis to your desktop. Run the program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator and on the Main Menu click the button that says Do a system scan and save a logfile. Post the HijackThis log in your next reply.

    19. Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM): Malwarebytes Anti-Malware FREE to your desktop.

    •Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
    •At the end, be sure to uncheck Enable free trial of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO. Make sure Update Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes Anti-Malware are checked, then click Finish.
    •If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
    •Once the program has loaded, select Perform Threat scan, then click Scan.
    •When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
    •Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
    •When completed, a log will open in Notepad.
    •Post the results of the scan in your next reply.

    20. Finally, download and run TCP Optimizer. Save the program to your desktop and then run the program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator. When the program opens, on the General Settings tab under Network Adapter selection click the option that says Modify all Network Adapters. Then at the bottom of the window where it says Choose settings, select the Optimal setting and click on Apply Changes. Click on Ok to confirm the changes and when prompted reboot the computer for the changes to take effect.

    21. Could you let me know what security programs you have installed?

    22. How many processes are running in the Windows Task Manager?

    Let me know how the computer is running after performing the above steps.

    You can attach logs by clicking on the Upload a File button when you are responding to your thread.
     
    Lugwalker likes this.
  5. 2014/10/20
    Daanii

    Daanii Well-Known Member Thread Starter

    Joined:
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    Thanks for the replies. I have done some of the things you suggest, Evan Omo, and I'll try some of the others in the next few days. Also, I'll find a disk manufacturer test program to try as RetiredLearner suggests.

    One problem with this hard-disk light problem is that it comes and goes. Right now I have no problem with it. The light is almost always off, and the computer works fine. Physical memory usage and CPU usage are also way down from before. From time to time, though, the problem still pops up.

    I thought the problem might be Windows updating in the background. I noticed last Friday that a bunch of Windows updates were being installed when I rebooted. But even after that I had the problem, when there did not seem to be any updating going on.
     

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