Prolonged constant drive activity on startup

schwim · 25 Mar 2017

Hello everyone!

I've got an issue with my computer that has made it pretty painful to shutdown/restart. The issue that I have is constant drive activity on the primary drive that lasts up to 10 minutes after startup. I timed it this morning and here's the breakdown:

Startup ~> Windows logo: 17 seconds
Win Logo ~> Desktop: 1:29
Desktop ~> Idle drives: 9:14

So all told, I'm almost 11 minutes to idle drives.

When I say constant drive activity, I really mean that in the most severe sense: the primary drive is running so much that trying to start an app takes a very long time. I started the task manager for the following screenshot and it took almost a minute to bring it into view after starting it.

Here's my taskmanager and resource monitor:

Could someone help me figure out a way to get the PC to the point that it's usable in less time than it takes to cook dinner(my dinners are simple). I'd love to have the computer start up and be able to use it in a minute or so, even if it's not completely up to speed.

Thanks for your time!

dalchina · 25 Mar 2017

Hi, start with a couple of simple tests on your disk (what sort of disk is your system disk? SSD? HDD? SSHD?)

Download these two free programs
CrystalDiskinfo - SMART params check
CrystalDiskMark - benchmark

(easy to find)

Run each, and post a screenshot of each (use the icon above your text to the left of the video icon 'Insert Image').

If your disk read-write speed is degraded, that could cause such problems.

If that's not so, then please
a. try booting to Safe Mode and report how that behaves
b. do a clean boot, and report how that behaves
Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts
1st part only.

schwim · 25 Mar 2017

Hi there and thanks very much for your help!

Here's the screenies of CDI and CDM:

dalchina · 26 Mar 2017

Hi, I have looked up your disk code- you have a Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB Internal Hard Drive, SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8ms. It looks fine.

So please try the second part of what I suggested to check for the impact of installed programs.

a. try booting to Safe Mode and report how that behaves
b. do a clean boot, and report how that behaves
Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts
1st part only.

swarfega · 26 Mar 2017

One thing you could check is the number of start up items.

Right click on the taskbar and select task manager.
Select the start-up tab

Now you can go through and check whats enabled. Some can be disabled such as Java as thats only the updater. Feel free to list the items here so we can advise.

dalchina · 26 Mar 2017

It's not the number, it's the effect. If there is anything there having an effect, what I've suggested will demonstrate that. Thus please start with what I suggest. If no improvement, it's not something in the start-up list.

swarfega · 26 Mar 2017

It's still pertinent to check what programs are running at start up and to see if any have a high system impact.

dalchina · 26 Mar 2017

- first see if any of them do, and if so, then do the analysis. Once you know one or more of them has an undesired effect (if boot issues resolved after a clean boot), a process of elimination follows. If the boot problems remain after a clean boot, it's necessary to look deeper.