Weird Problem with computer

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hartzofspace
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26 May 2013, 6:10 pm

Hi, techies! I was wondering if some of you could help me out. One of the computers in our house is acting strangely. For some reason various programs keep writing continuously to the hard drive. Then it becomes necessary to clean out the cache because everything is so slowed down. The OS is Windows 7. If you need anymore info to help me figure out what is going on, please let me know.

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Meistersinger
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26 May 2013, 7:59 pm

hartzofspace wrote:

First, have you any kind of antivirus scan or scanned for malware? This sounds like it may be a virus or some other sort of malware

Second, have you run system update?

Finally, you may need to run a registry cleaner.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, you may need to contact the manufacturer of your computer, since your version of Windows is customized to the computer manufacturer. Otherwise, you will need to contact Microsoft.

hartzofspace
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26 May 2013, 10:12 pm

hartzofspace wrote:

Meistersinger wrote:

First, have you any kind of antivirus scan or scanned for malware? This sounds like it may be a virus or some other sort of malware

Yes . We recently installed a new firewall and antivirus but have always had both on this computer.

Meistersinger wrote:

Second, have you run system update?

Not sure what that is, but am fairly certain that we have not.

Meistersinger wrote:

Finally, you may need to run a registry cleaner.

We use something called CCleaner, which is very good. Also, my husband noticed that it was mostly Google Earth that was writing almost continuously to the hard drive, so he uninstalled and reinstalled it twice. For the past two hours there has been no writing to the hard drive, so we are keeping our fingers crossed. He is planning to reinstall windows if the problem returns.

Meistersinger wrote:

If these steps do not resolve the issue, you may need to contact the manufacturer of your computer, since your version of Windows is customized to the computer manufacturer. Otherwise, you will need to contact Microsoft.

Thanks! I will report back if this problem continues.

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Krabo
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29 May 2013, 7:01 am

hartzofspace wrote:

(...)For some reason various programs keep writing continuously to the hard drive(...)

What kinds of programs, or all of them?

hartzofspace
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29 May 2013, 11:10 am

It was mostly Google Earth. We reinstalled Google Earth, and replaced the antivirus as well. So we're keeping our fingers crossed!

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Tori0326
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29 May 2013, 11:38 am

I'd also run a spyware scan for good measure. Chrome kept crashing on me yesterday and after reading their support page ran Spybot and cleaned everything out, been fine since. Computers are quirky.

hartzofspace
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29 May 2013, 4:43 pm

Thanks, will do!

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Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
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Buxcador
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03 Jun 2013, 7:56 pm

hartzofspace wrote:

It was mostly Google Earth. We reinstalled Google Earth, and replaced the antivirus as well. So we're keeping our fingers crossed!

First suspect is always a virus. I recommend Avira antivir because is one of the best detectors, is lightweight, and also free.

But also may be that you PC lacks enough memory, so Windows tries to emulate memory by writing to disk. The solution is install more memory (not very expensive), and maybe a SSD.

hartzofspace
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Joined: 14 Apr 2005
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03 Jun 2013, 8:09 pm

Buxcador wrote:

hartzofspace wrote:

It was mostly Google Earth. We reinstalled Google Earth, and replaced the antivirus as well. So we're keeping our fingers crossed!

Thanks!

_________________
Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
-- Dr. Dale Turner

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