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    Constant Hard Drive Noise on TZ

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by Turbostraw, Jan 21, 2008.

  1. Turbostraw

    Turbostraw Newbie

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    Hello,

    I bought a TZ for my mother thinking it would help her deal with her world of pain and agony (thousands of mails), but this idea is turning out into a big headache.

    I worked on PC a few years ago, but now I mostly work on macs. However I am still pretty handy with PCs.

    First impression: the computer is painfully slow! Even slower than her 4 years old ultra portable which was EXTREMELY slow! I was terrified.

    The hard drive is always accessing! The small orange diode is always on and it is driving me mad with its small grinding noise.

    I did a Semi Clean install explained here in these forums. The problem seemed gone for 10 minutes before I had to install all the drivers, and some vital Vaio programs (Power Management mostly) in the Vaio Recovery program.

    Even when I kill all the running processes with the Task manager the noise is still there.

    However, when I boot in Safe Mode: no noise! Only the occasionnal HD access.

    I even upgraded the Ram to 2 GB thinking it would do it but, though the computer is faster, the noise is still there.

    Any ideas? Should I call a priest or something?
     
  2. Rahul

    Rahul Notebook Prophet

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    The first time you get Vista, it will be constantly accessing the hard drive, "indexing" the files to make searching for them easier, very annoying and pretty useless.

    Vista is a resource-hog and Sony puts a lot of bloatware to really slow the lower end TZ models down (with 4200rpm HDD, not SSD). Good thing to do is a clean install of Vista or the absolute best bet, go to Windows XP, I did it in the first few hours of buying my machine, didn't even try out Vista. Its much leaner and can do just about everything Vista can do.

    The HDD is only on when I'm obviously putting it to work, otherwise, mostly silent.

    We should call a priest to cast out the abomination that is Vista, pour some holy water on this demon. :)
     
  3. Die

    Die Notebook Consultant

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    There's a number of things you can do to turn down hard disk activity.

    Before I start, I'd REALLY recommend a full clean install.

    First, you can turn off System Restore. There are pros and cons involved of course, but for me the pros outweigh the cons as I make DVD back-ups from time to time instead of having my system constantly doing so on the HDD.

    Second, you can turn off the Vista Indexing feature by going to Start -> Computer -> Drive C: -> Properties and uncheck "Index this drive for faster searching." IIRC, there's another way to do this. Definitely have a look at the Vista tweaking guide.

    Third, I'd have a look at www.blackviper.com and try going through his list of services (Type services.msc in Start) and eliminating services you probably don't need. Start off with his Safe checklist as the Tweaked disables a lot of stuff that might be important.


    I'm not sure what your definition of slow is. My TZ150 on Vista cold boots in under 40 seconds and everything is just eerily snappy considering how much flap people give the slow 4200 RM HDDs... good that you updated your RAM though! So basically I'd advise you go to the Vista tweak thread and go through all the recommendations, THEN if you want to take it another step forward, go into disabling services.

    Here's the link to the vista tweaks thread here on the forum:
    http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

    Black Viper Service Tweaks Guide:
    http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm

    Also I'm glad I posted before |SONY|'s overly redundant "ditch Vista" comment.
     
  4. Turbostraw

    Turbostraw Newbie

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    Wow I don't know what to say. Thank you guys for these helpful answers its much appreciated.

    I did a mix of everything I heard around here, replaced Windows' search with Google Destop, and everything is quiet and snappy now.

    I would have installed XP...but I just did a full install and i'm just not that young anymore ;)
     
  5. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Tweaks available below if you want...
     
  6. |SONY|

    |SONY| Notebook Evangelist

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    Ditch Vista. That's the best advice you will get on these forums :)
     
  7. coolguy

    coolguy Notebook Prophet

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    Turn off windows automatic updates and do it manually.
     
  8. |SONY|

    |SONY| Notebook Evangelist

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    what the AU has anything to do it with. It is fast indexing and doing all kinds of dumb sh&t.

    Ditch Vista.
     
  9. Die

    Die Notebook Consultant

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    You're sounding like a broken record and bordering on spamming every thread with "Ditch Vista." You don't like Vista. We get that already.
     
  10. |SONY|

    |SONY| Notebook Evangelist

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    That's not the point. Once you ditch vista, then my mission will be completed.

    You got problems with my spamming? Tell me what is the point of your message Die? It is as much spam as mine... UNFORTUNATELY.... kids.
     
  11. Touge

    Touge Notebook Consultant

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    Do the tweaks, my vista runs great, no hdd seeking... i do have indexing turned off
     
  12. Die

    Die Notebook Consultant

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    Your ditch vista posts are spam because you don't expand on them. All you say is Ditch Vista. Distch Vista. I'm getting tired of clicking on a thread and seeing a post from you, sometimes having nothing to do with the point of the thread, saying to "ditch vista." My message is to let you know you can't force people to switch away from Vista.

    This is getting off topic and I won't play your back and forth Spam Game |SONY| you want me to play with you by contributing nothing to this thread, Name calling ("Kids") shows your true colors. This is my response. I am sure you're going to respond with another inflammatory response as you just did, but I have no time to play back and fofth games with you and resort to name calling on the Internet.
     
  13. |SONY|

    |SONY| Notebook Evangelist

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    Die, get lost.
     
  14. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    I have been asking for clarification, without getting any explanation.

    Infraction given for insult.

    Please keep to the topic under discussion.

    John
     
  15. |SONY|

    |SONY| Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks John. You are one great nanny and I mean it...
     
  16. jimmy-floyd

    jimmy-floyd Notebook Evangelist

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    yeah, lets not clog up this thread.
    so, can someone summarize and even make a faq on solving hdd noise issue.., cos this kind of bug also persists on SZ's.
     
  17. Rahul

    Rahul Notebook Prophet

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    We really need to get some FAQs and sticky threads in our beloved Sony forum ASAP. I may like to do it.
     
  18. coolguy

    coolguy Notebook Prophet

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    It is. Turning off AU stops the hard drive grinding for several minutes (svchost for AU consuming 50-100% cpu) immediately after start up.

    You should be ditching windows xp soon as it's support will end in 2009.
    Do you want to go back in time?. Then switch to XP. Nobody would want to go back to 2001.
     
  19. JLagoon

    JLagoon Notebook Enthusiast

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    *finger crosssed*

    Just expressing my experience and opinion here

    I did a P1 clean install, and did not modify anything, except a few small tweaks, such as the 400 ms menu delay, start up items, etc. I did not tinker with the services, windows defender, firewall, etc. at all. It runs fine now. In the past, when I tried disabling services (carefully--followed a few guides), Vista would have crashed from time to time, and it even went to Blue Screen once.

    I, personally, like the Vista indexing system. I even added the program folder into it. It makes accessing things much faster and easier, because I just need to hit the windows key, and type the name of the program or just a part of its name, instead of using the cursor to find the programs.
     
  20. DanyBui81

    DanyBui81 Notebook Evangelist

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    what is au???
     
  21. exetlaios

    exetlaios Notebook Evangelist

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    I think he means Automatic Updates :)

    Why does it help turning off these? I don't realy think so is so important.