High CPU usage and incessant disk activity

trents · May 1, 2015

Working on customer's laptop. The CPU and disk are working hard for extended periods of time, especially for quite awhile after boot up into Windows. Older Core 2 machine with 4 gb of RAM and Windows 7 Home. Feels like something shady is working in the background that is not apparent to me. In Task Manager there are no apps active when this is going on. I will include screenies of Processes and Services. Here is what I've tried so far:

1. Scanned for Malware with Malwarebytes. None found.
2. Disabled unnecessary programs in startup like Acrobat Reader.
3. Ran "chkdsk /f" in command prompt but no errors found.
4. Disabled the Windows Search service in Services but that did not help

Please take a look at these and tell me if you see anything suspicious:

Automata · May 1, 2015

You didn't "show processes from all users" in your screenshot.

trents · May 1, 2015

thideras said:
You didn't "show processes from all users" in your screenshot.

I don't believe there are any other users but I'll check for that soon as the current scan is finished. Right now I'm running Malwarebytes in Safe Mode.

trents · May 1, 2015

Here is processes from all users:

Robert17 · May 1, 2015

I'd start with changing the Cyberlink and Realplayer from running to either stopped or manual. Look at a few other similar unnecessary programs that you can call up when needed.

c627627 · May 1, 2015

Probably not your problem but incessant disk activity may be due to Indexing.
I disable indexing on my computers but others prefer to leave it on.

trents · May 1, 2015

Okay, so I turned indexing off. I've had that problem before, especially with XP Search v. 4 and Vista.

Silver_Pharaoh · May 1, 2015

Nero back it up?

trents · May 1, 2015

Nope. There is some other Nero 9 stuff but not Back it Up.

Actually, the problem seems solved now. Not sure exactly what it was but I spent a lot of time cleaning up the system: removing unused and older versions of programs, that sort of thing. In Programs and Features there were about four editions each of Adobe Reader and Java. I deleted a ton of HP laptop bloatware and old printer drivers representing several printers that the client doesn't even have anymore. Finally, I did an aggressive scan and clean with CCleaner. Seems happy now. Tomorrow I'm expecting to install an SSD in this laptop if it comes in shipment like it's suppose to.

Silver_Pharaoh · May 2, 2015

FWIW, Nero back it up does appear to be installed.
1st screenshot of "show all process from all users", 5th item running

Though, it could be a generic service used by Nero...

trents · May 2, 2015

SP, I have now uninstalled Nero. Customer wasn't using it anyway and probably didn't even know what it was.

Silver_Pharaoh · May 2, 2015

trents said:
SP, I have now uninstalled Nero. Customer wasn't using it anyway and probably didn't even know what it was.

Nothing like spring cleaning eh?

That laptop can probably breath again after removing all that crapware lol :thup:

trents · May 2, 2015

A lot of laptops tend to be underpowered and every little bit of overburden relief can help.

orion456 · May 2, 2015

Ont thing about laptops, if you don't let them run over night weekly and do all their cleaning and rearranging task at night they will try to do them when you turn it on. I especially found this with Vista, a constant disk chunker, until I left it over night each week and then it was a lot happier. Make sure you disable sleeping and other forms of down regulating to allow full power all night long.

trents · May 3, 2015

orion456 said:
Ont thing about laptops, if you don't let them run over night weekly and do all their cleaning and rearranging task at night they will try to do them when you turn it on. I especially found this with Vista, a constant disk chunker, until I left it over night each week and then it was a lot happier. Make sure you disable sleeping and other forms of down regulating to allow full power all night long.

That's true of desktops as well. Most of my customers are senior citizens who if they have laptops use them only as fixed workstations. So I always set the Power scheme to High Performance and tell them to leave the machine on 24/7 so it can do it's various scans and updates in the middle of the night when it isn't being used. I also tell them to restart the machine once a weak to allow the downloded updates to install and to clear memory leaks that accumulate. I tell them, "Your computer will be happier this way."

High CPU usage and incessant disk activity

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