Fan running on i7 when system is idle

[Zog1971]

Ugh. I'm experiencing new problems today on my i7,256gb. Once again, when the SP3 is just sitting with no programs running, live tiles all off, at 1% CPU usage and cool with no fan----I let it sit doing nothing for 5 minutes and all of the sudden the fan comes on and the unit is hot. In looking at processes in task manager, the system process is what is peaking the system to 40-50%CPU and 99-100%disk activity. A few other process pop up with it when it happens: System Host installer, system interrupts, windows module installer worker, service host: disk defragmenter. All of those pop in and out while the system process is what takes the majority. As soon as I move the cursor by touching screen, touchpad, or keyboard the system process goes to 0% and the system cools. What is going on???????? I let it run for about 15 minutes but was afraid the system was going to overheat so stopped it. Is it defragmenting my disk? Does the system auto defrag the disk? It seems like that is what it is doing as I'm monitoring it now Service Host: Disk Defragmentor is going from 5-20%Cpu usage. I'm gonna let it run til it stops, but yet another thing to add to the list of things that are making our fans blaze up.

 

[Zog1971]

I just answered my own question because I see that there is a setting to have the system auto defrag on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. I'm gonna go ahead and let this finish out and then see what settings mine are on. Is it a good thing to defrag often or is this something that can be set to monthly or even turned off and run manually from time to time?

 

[JesseDiaz]

I just answered my own question because I see that there is a setting to have the system auto defrag on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. I'm gonna go ahead and let this finish out and then see what settings mine are on. Is it a good thing to defrag often or is this something that can be set to monthly or even turned off and run manually from time to time?

It always been my understanding that defrag is a "no,no" on SSD drives. Ive read that it actually can shorten the life of an SSD
After reading about your experience, I better check to see if my SP3 has defrag set to automatically be performed.

Thanks

 

[ctitanic]

I'm glad that I picked the i5.

 

[JesseDiaz]

I just answered my own question because I see that there is a setting to have the system auto defrag on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. I'm gonna go ahead and let this finish out and then see what settings mine are on. Is it a good thing to defrag often or is this something that can be set to monthly or even turned off and run manually from time to time?

Where the setting you found that has the system auto defrag on a daily , weekly, etc etc basis?

 

[ctitanic]

Where the setting you found that has the system auto defrag on a daily , weekly, etc etc basis?

 

[GreyFox7]

I kinda wonder about the value of defragging an SSD anyway... they do their own thing internally as well and this may be just a waste or actually detrimental.

Off topic: Additionally in a VM environment all the "optimization" is fighting hypervisor and storage optimizations you have paid for.

I think with a traditional HDD this was a good idea on a dedicated PC, however with todays technology options it should detect where am I running Physical or Virtual and on what HDD or SSD and turn down a lot or all of the optimizations because they were aimed at a different environment completely.

 

[Zog1971]

Yes, mine was indeed doing it's weekly scheduled defrag. I checked my SP1 also and looks like they both were auto defaulted to do the defrag weekly. I changed mine to monthly, but don't see an option to turn of auto defrag all together. Anyone know if that can be done? Apparently, my SP1 has been doing this each week and I have never noticed any heat or fan issues. Hmmmmmm.....this isn't making me super pleased with my i7 SP3 right now. Admitted, defrag is something that I would anticipate stressing the cpu, but this gives me some good insight that I will be hearing the fan ramp up much more on my i7 simply doing the tasks my SP1 did without having the fan ramp up.

 

[Liam2349]

Do NOT defrag an SSD.

How about unticking the schedule box?

Apparently my SP2 is also doing this, weekly.

 

[bluegrass]

I'm glad that I picked the i5.

Now Frank. You can't blame Zog's problem on SP3 i7's.

I've been in the game of computer support of a long time and I have found that OS's or so complex and run various tasks in the background that we never know about. I wouldn't get too excited about things going on when you're not running something. The OS has a mind of it's own. Zog found a real reason this time but believe me there will be times you will pull your hair out trying to figure out why the computer seems to be active when you aren't doing anything.

 

[Zog1971]

Do NOT defrag an SSD.

How about unticking the schedule box?

Duh. I found it. No longer defragging!! Everyone should check this out since they are set to automatically defrag weekly.

 

[Liam2349]

This appears to be an automatic Windows process, as my desktop SSD has also been defragging.

Just type defrag on the Start screen to get the box Frank showed, and make sure you stop the scheduled defrag for your SSDs.