It's constant, not just at start up. It is almost as if the current program needs to hog all the memory so everything else gets dumped. It's getting so bad that even clicking the Start Menu brings up a blank box, the hard drive thrashes away and, eventually, the Start Menu items appear. I've checked the Prefetch and SuperFetch options in W7 and they are OK. When the thrashing is going on I open Resource Manager and the disk is showing a HUGE amount of activity - but it is writing and reading files that aren't even active. It's most strange.. bones bones@xxxxxxx http://woodair.net From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Reynolds Sent: 28 June 2012 15:55 To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [jhb] Re: Slow PC If this is happening on start up it suggests there may be an issue with the hard drive. If the drive has a bulit in cache, your drive could potentially be caching the W7 system cache or vice versa! Try disabling the drives cache see if this makes a difference. If it does then you have a choice, disable the W7 system cache for that drive or leave the drives cache disabled. If this is not the cause then potential causes are file fragmentation; error in file allocation table, power supply issues or even drive failing. NOTE, a failure of another unit may be drawing the power leaving insufficient for the drive, this would be noticable if the power supply is running flat out. Paul -----Original Message----- From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Fossil Sent: 28 June 2012 16:06 To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [jhb] Slow PC My main PC seems to have developed an annoying slowdown recently. Both my PC's are running W7 and whilst the second is working away quite happily this one is getting a bit of a slug. The problem is that on starting any program the hard drive thrashes for a good 30 seconds or more before the program loads. I get the same sometimes when switching between programs too so it's painful work. Even after a reboot the same happens so it isn't a full cache. I've got 8Gb RAM and plenty of Virtual Memory set but it feels as if both are full the way the machine behaves. Anyone else ever had similar? bones bones@xxxxxxx http://woodair.net No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2180 / Virus Database: 2437/5098 - Release Date: 06/28/12