Swapfile problem?

[johnnybee]

Hi you lovely peeps - sorry it's been so long, but I've had the devil's own job trying to log onto the site for a few months now, but I finally cracked it!
Now I've had a bit of a reorganisation of my home systems since my "big rig" - the business PC in my bedroom mysteriously bluescreened then refused to boot a couple of months ago.
Rather than bugger about I built a new system based on the Asus M4A-88T Evo-V, a mATX board with the AM3 socket and USB3 as standard; however another PC that came in had an identical board apart from being full ATX, so that one got an Athon220 dualcore and 6Gb of DDR3.
For various reasons I built both systems into full ATX cases - noise and heat retention being the main reasons - so effectively what I have is two more-or-less identical setups; both use SATA2 HDD's and both use Pioneer DVDRW optical drives.
The problem I have is that the A220 rig is quiet as a mouse - not a peep out of it; however the main rig - which has a Phenom2 x4 3.4GHz installed - chatters its head off even when it's ostensibly doing nothing, and the HDD LED is flashing ten to the dozen - it is REALLY intrusive, and something I could well do without.
I've been into the system and changed the size/management of the swapfile, and even did away with the swapfile altogether, but the chattering continues unabated; other than that the rig performs flawlessly - it's quick, super-responsive and returned a Windows Index of 6.8 - not bad by any standards.
So the question is, what the hell is causing this swapfile activity and the awful racket that goes with it?
Any ideas, fellow geeks?

[jojo]

I'm not sure where you have looked, but I would start with the services.

You seem to be fairly knowledgeable so I don't want to risk talking down to you. But on my XP set up, I have most of the services disabled. Quite simply, for most users, they are not needed and simply take up resources.

Some of those could be responsible.

The next thing I'd be checking is if the defrag is set to auto. I use SSDs so have mine switched off. But if I were using an old type HD, I would still have it turned off and use a thrid party defrag whenever I had a bit of spare time.

I did a load of research on each service, one at a time, a while ago, so became conversant with each one before I altered it. COM+ is one to turn off for most people. DCOM is often recommended to be turned off, but on my machine, doing that I couldn't access my Kodak Camera.

Most are quite simple, but a few needs some individual attention.

I have compiled a list, with some brief details of what most do. I'll post it if you like. You're welcome to use it at your leasure if it helps. Certainly gave my machine a boost.

[jojo]

Incidentally, for other OSs, I'd turn off auto-defrag as well. If an SSD is being used, turn off paging and indexing.

Which reminds me, have your turned off indexing in the busy machines. It takes ages, is a total pain and can be safely turned off

[johnnybee]

Thanks for that, Jojo - I'll have a skeg round the services menu alterations if you'd be kind enough to post them for me.
The oddity is that both machines are using W7 Ultimate x64 - same load from the same DVD, so why one shold differ so much from another is a bit of a mystery!
Cheers, mate!

[jojo]

First, the info I suggested is for XP. I know you use it and made the wrong assumptions. I've posted the file anyway, as a .jpg, below. Please feel welcome to use it, or comment as you see fit.

Many services are simply redundant in XP or shouldn't be used. Update for example. These can be turned off on most systems. But others may be needed by some users.

In XP, it is often suggested to turn off DCOM as well, for example. Mine is on because my Kodak camera needs it to load images. A bit of smarts and some knowledge is necessary.

I didn't realise you were using W7. That would be a different game.

I have twin SSDs with W7 on one. The best I can suggest is again, turning off services. I've done this, but needed to be a lot more careful, so a lot of services remain on.

The problem is, since W7 is still active, developments may need to use some services that are otherwise turned off. COM+ for example. On the plus side, M$ is loosing interest so more can safely be off.

I will, respectfully draw your attention to another thread on the problems I and many others had with a recent W7 update which invalidated W7 on my machine. I had bought my copy from an official Microsoft Partner so had little problem sorting it out. But it does demonstrate that M$ is not cuddly Uncle Bill any more. I have updates turned off on W7. I'll check for updates every so often and turn it back on to download new updates. M$ won't allow updates unless it has this full access, which I find suspect anyway.

Anyway, when I was researching services, I started with Black Viper. He offers suggestions, each backed by fairly good explanations, if a little obtuse at times. But he is a computer admin so his set up is designed to work in an office, managing a group of computers. Also, occasionally, some of his suggestions were not suitable for me personally.

I will suggest you start there and select those services which can be safely switched off. Then enter each one in turn into Google and read a few other opinions. Some quite amusing sites turn up in your searches, including one that seems to think M$ is part of the global conspiracy to corrupt our juices!! (Or something)

I found reading a selection, even some wacky ones is the best approach. Gathering all the info together to get a better understanding of what is going on.

That's may be a little more intense than you may have liked. If so, cross check with Over Clockers and a few others.

Here's a few good links to get started:

sites.google.com/site/100pricin/speeding-up-your-pc/disable-unnecessary-services
www.askvg.com/master-tutorial-to-make-your-windows-7-super-fast/
www.pcworld.com/article/218323/speed_up_windows_by_stripping_it_down.html
www.blackviper.com/2009/10/01/black-vipers-windows-7-super-tweaks/

[vikingken]

You dont say what AV you are using John, but I seem to remember you using AVG and it about the hungriest of them all. If you Run a msconfig, Start Menu, you leave your AV running even if you shut everything else off. These AVs now dont just want to be an AV, they run all kinds of extra addons. The Start Menu might not be enough, you might need to go into the AV Properties and turn off some of the extra crap. That is one of the reaasons I like Panda; its not the easiest to set up, but if you know what your doing its not bad. Running in the Cloud, it uses absolutly no resources whatsoever. Because of the tricky setup, I still advise people to use Avast and even that uses more resources than it used to. Sign of the times, everything wants to take over and tell the user what to do.

I have no answer for the difference in the setup, but I have found the same thing. I have put it down to the BIOS running the setup, but my computers are all quite different BIOS and hardware. I have both AMD and Intel; similar output, but quite different ways of producing it.

[johnnybee]

Well I finally cracked the problem but it wasn't just one issue that was causing it, more a combination of several factors that came together under *certain conditions* to produce the excessive referral to the swapfile.
First I disabled AVG altogether and deleted it from the startup tab in MSCONFIG; that reduced the memory takeup considerably (in taskmanager) and although it did reduce the swapfile activity to a point, startup and shutdown took forever accompanied by a passable impression of a Browning mark 8.
So taking Jojo's suggestion in hand, I went through the Services menu and reset all but essential services properties to manual, and the obvious ones to disabled.
Again, a minor improvement was evident but the sluggish boot/shutdown was still there, so I began to rethink the entire problem from another angle.
It struck me that it might be useful to have another look at the setup on the other system, if for no other reason than to find any slight differences between the two that might account for the vast discrepancy in performance and noise.
Checking the BIOS settings produced no surprises with only one minor difference between the two; however "freezing" the DMI screen on the noisy system showed me that the memory controller was operating in single-channel mode, so a similar check on the quiet one showed that it was in dual-channel mode.
Having ascertained and confirmed that it was a memory problem - well, it HAD to be - I then looked at the memchips and where they were installed, and this is where another slight difference showed up; the quiet rig used two 4GB strips installed into DDR0 and DDR1, thus enabling dual-channel operation; however the noisy one had four 2GB strips installed in all four sockets. Okay, that's a conundrum, so I started swapping out modules in order, and discovered that the strip installed into DDR2 wouldn't work in any of the other slots; on trying another 'good' strip in that slot the rig bluescreened, than went into a bootloop - classic slot AND module failure. That explained why the rig was in single-channel mode, and why the memory controller was doing overtime to keep pace with the 3.4GHz Phenom - and failing miserably.
So, swapping out the memory from Mr Quiet to Mr Noisy, using DDR0 and DDR1 produced a perfect solution to the problem, and installing 4GB into Mr Quiet in slots DDR0 and DDR1 was equally successful. As my main purpose in doing all this was to leave me with the best-specced system from all the bits and sell the other one, that's exactly what I did; the Athlon2 x2 went on Gumtree and sold within two days at £75, and I'm very happy with the Phenom2 with 8GB and 1.5 TB of storage.
Thanks for all your help, fellers - it's much appreciated.

[jojo]

That was both fascinating and good to hear.

Thank you so much for getting back and reporting.

Can I ask, as it isn't clear to me. Did you buy new 2Gb memory strips for one of the machines?

On mine, I have 3 x 1 Gb strips. I should have 4 but...well... kinda..... sort of, messed up putting one strip in and ruined it.

It's been fine frankly. And given the problems I've been having with hardware in recent years, I'll let the sleeping dog lie!! But interested in your approach, which I was urged to do when I upped my RAM.

Also, is the non-functional strip perhaps an older spec. My MB uses DDR2, I know there are older RAM strips and the latest is DDR3. All of mine are DDR2 of course, but mixing will, I understand, cause problems.

Thanks again for the feedback.




en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_SDRAM

[johnnybee]

Well as it turned out, Jojo, I had bought those 2GB strips when I originally upgraded my PC with the Phenom; all four were identcal and bought from the same batch/supplier around this time last year.
Obviously with one of 'em going AWOL I'm left with three good 'uns, which enna lorra good if you want to stay in dual channel mode - they HAVE to be identical modules for D/C to work, so two of 'em went into the dualcore rig in DDR0 and DDR1.
So I now have a *spare* 2Gb strip if one of the others decides to pop its clogs - although I'm hoping that the fault with the slot on the board was the sole cause of the original module's demise - seems to be a reasonable assumption.
Historically, all Asus boards seem to be very picky about what sort of memory is fitted, and the way the modules themselves are configured; this goes back to the 'old' Athlon days when DDR was a relatively new idea - Samsung and Infineon modules were OK as long as they were low density chips, but anything over 512Mb was suspect, frequently causing hangs and crashes.
For that reason I've always stuck to Micron or Corsair modules, as they seem to be far more reliable than most other makes - mass production being what it is, there's more chance of mainstream gear failure than niche market products.
Wharever, for the time being everything's chuntering along nicely, so I guess the next step is to upgrade the graphics output card; with this game, the trouble is that when you upgrade one area it shows up 'deficiencies' in other areas - 'chasing your own tail' is the name of the game, apparently! For now I'll be keeping my peepers open for an ATI 6870 or something similar to replace the 5850 - although its clock speed is 670MHz, it only has 512MB of OB GDDR3 memory which is a limiting factor. The 68 series runs at 725MHz and uses a minimum of 1024 of GDDR5 - makes a massive difference!
Thanks again, Jojo - have yourself a massively indulgent Christmas if we don't get to speak again beforehand!

[jojo]

I'm learning loads here.

I was under the impression that memory simply needed to be of the same generation, ie, DDR2 with DDR2 and not mixing DDR3 or 1.

The memory modules in my machine, a quad Asus MB. are tow which I bought with the machine in 2007 and one which I bought from the same supplier, about 6 years later.

I know they are all supposed to be installed together, but I was trying it out. I'm happy to say I have experienced no problems that I know of.

I can't find any trace of the channel modes in My BIOS, which is Phoenix, 2007 of Dual or single channel mode. There doesn't seem to be a lot about memory at all, other than a list of the Storage devices and their configuration on another page.

Does my BIOS simply not use that facility?

Incidentally, I recently upgraded to a GTX 670 graphics card. I did so for a rather resource hog game I was hoping to play.


Checking out the latest in memory, seem the DDR4 is the business now. www.corsair.com/en/landing/ddr4

When you're pushed to upgrade and can figure a load into the budget this would seem to be the starting point. www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/X99DELUXE/specifications/

[vikingken]

You cant mix DDR 1, 2 and 3 Jojo, for the simple reason the  slots are all different. Two and 3 look the same, but are not and so dont break modules by trying to force them into a wrong slot.

[jojo]

Thanks ken, that much I already knew.

But the timings of the memory cards I didn't pay attention to, though appreciate how important these will be.

I can only assume I got lucky.

Since we are both using Asus boards which are about the same age or so, I'm wondering where the BIOS memory setting which jonnybee refers to, are?

I'm assuming these are terms in some cryptic fashion. But equally, perhaps my BIOS doesn't have them.

I might post a few images of my BIOS pages to give a better idea.

Incidentlly, ken, did you check out that X99 ASUS MB I linked to? We can dream I suppose.

[vikingken]

Once upon a time Jojo, BIOS were more or less built for Intel CPUs and care had to be taken when using AMD. Because of the difference in how the CPUs worked, sometimes the BIOS would mistakenly set up an AMD according to its number and well overclock it. This used to cause crashing at the best and non starting at the worst. Now all the hardware is built for either Intel or AMD and tuned properly for its job. Unless your very clever, its best to leave the memory part of the BIOS on Default. In fact apart from setting the time and date, theres nothing else needs doing. If your running 2 OSs without dual booting, you will need to set which drive is the primary.

That motherboard is for Intel i7; my laptop is Intel i7, but I only build AMD. Although I was looking at some top end kit the other day and there didn't seem to be such a big difference in price as there used to be. Not so long ago, you could built a top end AMD for about a third of the price of a top end Intel. That is far from the truth now.  

[jojo]

Think you're probably right ken.

[johnnybee]

Jumping back on this one for a minute; it isn't the BIOS screen that tells you what's on the system - although it originates from the same source - it's the DMI screen that comes up when you first boot the system. DMI - dynamic management interface - interrogates the system and shows you what's there and how it's configured; if you hit the 'home' key while the system boots it will hold the screen for you, and you can have a look at what's going on.
Alternatively you could download something like CPU-Z which will give you the same info, but in a different way; it's a great little app that gives you a rake of info including memory, disc drives, networking components and your graphics system - I can recommend it!

[jojo]

Thank johnnybee, I'll take a look.