Driving me crazy!

Please help!

Every Wednesday, my computer grinds to a crawl with some "background" check going on. My hard drive spins around and everything is slloooww.

It seems like a virus scan. But I think it must be system initiated because the one from my vc is on Friday (and I can pause that when it gets too much).

Is this something anyone else gets? How do I pause it? I've put up with this for years and finally I've had enough !&*!*

I've had a quick look about and can't find it.

Basil

Open up taskmanager, and see where all the CPU time is going.

It sounds like a virus scan. In the taskbar, right click on whatever antivirus software you're using. If it's not there, then launch it however you usually do. Somewhere in it's options you should be able to disable automatic scanning. Note that it's probably a good idea to scan your computer periodically, but you can at least start it when it's convienient.

mine shows up when it pleases
i could do a full scan before i go to work then lo and behold it will still want to do it again a day or two later

so when you say your virus checker is scheduled to go on a friday do you mean its automatic or thats when you tell it to go do its thang?

but aye give task manager a go

Probably nowhere if the problem is HD thrashing. Go to Sysinternals and grab something like DiskMon.

Check your schedualed tasks in windows too. There might be a specific app that runs at that time.

Could also be a weekly defrag scheduled.

Wednesday is traditionally the day for Windows Updates. It's not that, is it?

wednesday is traditionally the day that follows tuesday, is not that is it? ;)

What OS are you running?

Vista has a bunch of scheduled tasks of its own enabled by default, such as automatic defragging etc.

sysinternals' Filemon is a great tool to tell you what's happening in the background, and which process is doing it.

How much room have you left on your hard drive?

IPete2.

Backup. Format. Reinstall.

Will take you less time to do that than to figure out and stop whatever is causing the issue.

It could be absolutely anything. That RAM optimiser/defrag/anti-virus/search-indexer utility you installed so long ago you forgot about it.

Google desktop doing an index?

Who knows. Like I say, there are too many variables to figure out what's causing it.

It can take days to get your PC back to the configuration you like, with getting your apps installed, getting the settings the same, etc...

Reformat and reinstall is a little much...

Took me two entire days last time. Reinstalling the OS is relatively quick in the scheme of things.

I have a ghost image on a backup drive now, just in case, with all my essential tools pre-installed. Should be able to get a 'fresh install' within an hour.

It would help if you told us what friggin' OS you have...

How to Turn On or Off Vista Automatic Defragmentation

1. Click Start.

2. Click Control Panel.

4. Click System and Maintenance.

5. Under the Administrative Tools section at the bottom, click Defragment your hard drive.

6. Click OK to the UAC if it appears.

7. Click or unclick Run automatically (recommended) depending if you want this feature enabled or disabled.

8. Click OK

Oops...

I've got Windows XP (SP3).

I've had the PC for over 4 years and it's always done it.

I've searched all the places I could think of.

I've looked in Task Manager but most of that's just gibberish to me. Years ago I wrote down all the processes on Wednesday and on a different day, but couldn't see anything.

My hard drive has 20Gb left from 120Gb. But it's been doing from the start.

I'll be getting a new PC in a tear or two - that'll cure it!

Cheers

Basil

Ive started using ghost images as well. Can get back to a useful vista in 40 mins instead of 4 hours.

Try looking at applications that start up every time and remove any/all that you don't require.

Go into -

RUN - type "regedit" - Click on "Startup" tab

Untick all the boxes before next Wednesday and then wait and see.

If it still does it, a process is being started automatically somewhere else and is not an app that you can control (virus perhaps?).

Or download "Hijack This" and it will tell you things that are running that perhaps shouldn't be. This takes a little pc knowledge to use though, so don;t go stopping/deleting everything it brings up.

Utter kibble. You can do it in a day or less. Thing is, I never reinstall everything I had previously all at once. I like to enjoy a while without all the clutter, only installing apps that I really need.

Helps me out that I've an 8GB SD card which most of my really useful apps run directly from.

Try checking everything in this list.
http://computer.lifetips.com/cat/59612/computer-maintenance-tips/

Thanks.

There are a few things to try from your suggestions.

But I don't hold up much hope.

Basil