I have been having lots of problems for the last year of to MUCH hard-drive activity. So I searched and found the answer here. Some responded that it was a primary problem with Laptops running Vista and a 5400 RPM hard-drive. Well mine is also a laptop but running Windows 7, and a 7200 RPM HD.
However, I recently installed a larger drive that is only 5400 RPMs but I have tested it in many different ways and find that 95% of the time it is just as fast as my old 7200 RPM drive. But I had the problem with the faster drive as well! But not quite as bad. I would see the HD light running and running, and hogging the resources. Problem was I could not figure out WHAT WAS causing it?
It all came to a head this week and particularly today. It was so bad I could hardly use my laptop! I have used the Task Manager for YEARS but only for basic stuff, until today. The hard-drive was RUNNING CONSTANTLY so I knew that I HAD TO find out what the problem was. So I played with Task Manager and found the problem. Like I said I had only used Task Manager for very basic stuff so did not know it would show me EVERYTHING running in the background and especially WHAT was using the HD.
So I discovered that – "svchost.exe (LocalSystemNetworkRestricted)" was what was running constantly. So I tried turning it off and saw the HD light go out, and the graph showing the hard-drive use – drop like a rock, from MAX to almost zero.
Like I said I had a 7200 RPM drive before and it had this problem, and it got worse over time? My new hard-drive is 5400 RPMs, that I installed 6 weeks ago. It had NO PROBLEMS for the first month, it is only in the last 2 weeks I started noticing to much hard-drive activity!!
MY QUESTIONs: [This is my first POST, is it OK to ask more than one question at a time?]
Someone said I should search for 'SuperFetch' and deactivate it.
First: I could not find it? All I found is "TS_SuperFetch.ps1"?
Second: what is the best solution, and how would I do it?
Can I uninstall it in any way, or delete the file, and what are the results of getting rid of this thing completely?
FINAL: if I do not get rid of it will I need to go into Task Manager and stop this service EVERY TIME I reboot? Thanks
Best Answer
Superfetch is a service that was introduced with Vista and has been part of Windows ever since. It tries to speed up your computing experience by pre-loading parts of programs into memory with sometimes detrimental effects as you had to experience. It tries to determine which software you use and stores parts of it to the Windows folder.
Unfortunately, Superfetch doesn't always get it right which software you're going to use and can keep your hard drive busy for minutes after booting. I found it especially annoying since it kept on loading software I wasn't even going to use or that I had only used once. Since I use a plethora of different programs every day, Superfetch actually had a massive negative impact on my computer's performance with keeping the hard drive busy for 5-10 minutes after a fresh boot. This is the very reason I have been running Windows with deactivated Superfetch ever since it came out.
Additionally, since Superfetch uses memory for applications you might not even run, your free amount of memory will take a hit and might result in more swapping which adds just more wear to the hard drive.
Here's how to deactivate Superfetch:
Open up the Run prompt and enter Services.msc.
Find Superfetch in the list, right click it and stop the service.
Double-click on it and set its start up type to Disabled.
Once you reboot, Superfetch will stay inactive. Other culprits that may also slow your hard drive down can be automatically scheduled defrag sessions as well as Windows Search Indexer. You can deactivate the latter the same way as Superfetcher.
Svchost.exe is the executable that runs the service. You don't really have to mess with it after deactivating Superfetch. In fact, you should not touch it at all since it runs a lot of crucial Windows services.
You can check the Prefetch folder in the Windows directory to see which programs Superfetch prebuffered in your memory. You can safely delete them once Superfetch has been deactivated.