Defragmenter Performance issue

Has anyone else noticed that when a Vista defrag is running, that your PC can
entirely lock up for a period (on my PC it's about 3 minutes)?

I believe that when the defrag program de-fragments the windows page file,
or some other key system files, that the GUI basically stalls until the file
is unlocked.

The DWM continues to run and you can move windows around, but all processes
become non-responsive. Basically all message queues are stalled.

The drive rattles for ages and then the system comes back alive if you're
patient.

"warder" wrote:

> Has anyone else noticed that when a Vista defrag is running, that your PC can
> entirely lock up for a period (on my PC it's about 3 minutes)?

NO.

you can change the schedule for defrag running to a time when you are not likely to be using your computer.

and NO it does not happen for me.



mikeyhsd@sport.rr.com



"warder" <warder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:7FB55A7C-5BED-4760-AB9B-5F12885B9D2A@microsoft.com...
Has anyone else noticed that when a Vista defrag is running, that your PC can
entirely lock up for a period (on my PC it's about 3 minutes)?

I believe that when the defrag program de-fragments the windows page file,
or some other key system files, that the GUI basically stalls until the file
is unlocked.

The DWM continues to run and you can move windows around, but all processes
become non-responsive. Basically all message queues are stalled.

The drive rattles for ages and then the system comes back alive if you're
patient.

I have recently been trying the Windows defragmenter and have scheduled it
to run a 8pm every Tuesday. At this time i am actually still working on my
machine and, i have to say, that i haven't noticed any performance
deterioration or system locks. It has just got on with its job. I notice the
hard drive light flashing during the defragment period, but other than that,
and the fact that i had scheduled a defrag at that tine and day, i wouldn't
have know defragmenter was running.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

"warder" <warder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7FB55A7C-5BED-4760-AB9B-5F12885B9D2A@microsoft.com...
> Has anyone else noticed that when a Vista defrag is running, that your PC
> can
> entirely lock up for a period (on my PC it's about 3 minutes)?
>
> I believe that when the defrag program de-fragments the windows page file,
> or some other key system files, that the GUI basically stalls until the
> file
> is unlocked.
>
> The DWM continues to run and you can move windows around, but all
> processes
> become non-responsive. Basically all message queues are stalled.
>
> The drive rattles for ages and then the system comes back alive if you're
> patient.

Dfrgntfs does some fairly processor-intensive scanning when it starts up.
At the command line defrag /a /v <vol> will perform this scan so you can see
if the stalling is caused by analysis. That said, thus far I haven't had or
seen this non-responsiveness here on any of my computers.

Defrag should be doing low priority I/O even with the scanning. What is
your cpu/ram? Is it consistent no matter how much or how little you are
doing on the computer otherwise? None of this should matter but it might be
interesting to recreate.

Thanks


"warder" <warder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7FB55A7C-5BED-4760-AB9B-5F12885B9D2A@microsoft.com...
> Has anyone else noticed that when a Vista defrag is running, that your PC
> can
> entirely lock up for a period (on my PC it's about 3 minutes)?
>
> I believe that when the defrag program de-fragments the windows page file,
> or some other key system files, that the GUI basically stalls until the
> file
> is unlocked.
>
> The DWM continues to run and you can move windows around, but all
> processes
> become non-responsive. Basically all message queues are stalled.
>
> The drive rattles for ages and then the system comes back alive if you're
> patient.

The lock up is not due to analysis. I can see periods when the CPU maxes out
and very little drive activity occurs which I would say were analysis.

Unfortunately it is hard to know the cause - I have tried running
Performance Monitor and have Task Manager minimized to taskbar as an icon,
but the Task Manager icon freezes and stops updating, and performance monitor
is typically minimized and by the time I click on it when the GUI starts
responding, I don't believe it showed anything that pointed to a file, task
or process.

I guess I could run a defrag with that always visible on a second screen,
showing Disk activity to see if that shows anything.

The only thing I'm sure is that it appears to consistently happen when the
defrag is running, and there is a lot of disk activity - continuous -
throughout the non-responsive period.

It should be said that defrag runs without me really noticing it other than
during this period of 'freeze'. I love the new prioritized disk access that
makes background tasks like this less obvious to the user.

I will try running a defrag with Performance monitor open and see if I see
anything there. Judging by other programs, I suspect it will just stop
updating too, but it's worth a look.

Victoria:

It is a Thinkpad laptop, 1.5GB RAM, Pentium M 2GHz.

I've only noticed it when I'm using the computer as it just gets over it
when I'm not I guess.

On Friday evening I started the defrag and was skyping a friend - so CPU
would have been around 40% with not much else going on. (I run the CPU
widget so have a feel for general performance).

It occurred 3 times during our conversation (the conversation dropping each
time), until I finally aborted the defrag.

When the lockup occurred, the several second audio buffer containing the
skype audio being received replayed continuously for about 30 seconds and
eventually stopped.

I have seen it without Skype running so it's nothing to do with that though.

I will run defrag from the command line as per your suggestion and see what
I see there too.

Thank you.

"Victoria House [MSFT]" wrote:

> Dfrgntfs does some fairly processor-intensive scanning when it starts up.
> At the command line defrag /a /v <vol> will perform this scan so you can see
> if the stalling is caused by analysis. That said, thus far I haven't had or
> seen this non-responsiveness here on any of my computers.
>
> Defrag should be doing low priority I/O even with the scanning. What is
> your cpu/ram? Is it consistent no matter how much or how little you are
> doing on the computer otherwise? None of this should matter but it might be
> interesting to recreate.
>
> Thanks
>
>
> "warder" <warder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:7FB55A7C-5BED-4760-AB9B-5F12885B9D2A@microsoft.com...
> > Has anyone else noticed that when a Vista defrag is running, that your PC
> > can
> > entirely lock up for a period (on my PC it's about 3 minutes)?
> >
> > I believe that when the defrag program de-fragments the windows page file,
> > or some other key system files, that the GUI basically stalls until the
> > file
> > is unlocked.
> >
> > The DWM continues to run and you can move windows around, but all
> > processes
> > become non-responsive. Basically all message queues are stalled.
> >
> > The drive rattles for ages and then the system comes back alive if you're
> > patient.
>

I guess it will be a while before I see it again... no defrag now required.

No issue during that analysis though.


Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>defrag /a /v c:
Windows Disk Defragmenter
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corp.

Analysis report for volume C: C Drive

Volume size = 89.03 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 72.22 GB
Free space = 16.82 GB
Percent free space = 18 %

File fragmentation
Percent file fragmentation = 0 %
Total movable files = 155,072
Average file size = 558 KB
Total fragmented files = 29
Total excess fragments = 167
Average fragments per file = 1.00
Total unmovable files = 70

Free space fragmentation
Free space = 16.82 GB
Total free space extent = 16,319
Average free space per extent = 1 MB
Largest free space extent = 1.90 GB

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 17,465
Fragmented folders = 1
Excess folder fragments = 0

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 217 MB
MFT record count = 155,402
Percent MFT in use = 69
Total MFT fragments = 3

Note: On NTFS volumes, file fragments larger than 64MB are not included
in t
he fragmentation statistics

You do not need to defragment this volume.

Warder,
email me and we'll take this offline to stop clogging up the group. My
email is what you see in the newsgroup without the "online".



-Victoria

"warder" <warder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
newsED8E792-3C84-420E-89FF-A554AA1C54BB@microsoft.com...
>I guess it will be a while before I see it again... no defrag now required.
>
> No issue during that analysis though.
>
>
> Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
> Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
>
> C:\Windows\system32>defrag /a /v c:
> Windows Disk Defragmenter
> Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corp.
>
> Analysis report for volume C: C Drive
>
> Volume size = 89.03 GB
> Cluster size = 4 KB
> Used space = 72.22 GB
> Free space = 16.82 GB
> Percent free space = 18 %
>
> File fragmentation
> Percent file fragmentation = 0 %
> Total movable files = 155,072
> Average file size = 558 KB
> Total fragmented files = 29
> Total excess fragments = 167
> Average fragments per file = 1.00
> Total unmovable files = 70
>
> Free space fragmentation
> Free space = 16.82 GB
> Total free space extent = 16,319
> Average free space per extent = 1 MB
> Largest free space extent = 1.90 GB
>
> Folder fragmentation
> Total folders = 17,465
> Fragmented folders = 1
> Excess folder fragments = 0
>
> Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
> Total MFT size = 217 MB
> MFT record count = 155,402
> Percent MFT in use = 69
> Total MFT fragments = 3
>
> Note: On NTFS volumes, file fragments larger than 64MB are not included
> in t
> he fragmentation statistics
>
> You do not need to defragment this volume.

You can still email me.
There's a chance that it will repro anyway, since it looks like your system
was possibly never horribly fragmented anyway


"warder" <warder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
newsED8E792-3C84-420E-89FF-A554AA1C54BB@microsoft.com...
>I guess it will be a while before I see it again... no defrag now required.
>
> No issue during that analysis though.
>
>
> Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
> Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
>
> C:\Windows\system32>defrag /a /v c:
> Windows Disk Defragmenter
> Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corp.
>
> Analysis report for volume C: C Drive
>
> Volume size = 89.03 GB
> Cluster size = 4 KB
> Used space = 72.22 GB
> Free space = 16.82 GB
> Percent free space = 18 %
>
> File fragmentation
> Percent file fragmentation = 0 %
> Total movable files = 155,072
> Average file size = 558 KB
> Total fragmented files = 29
> Total excess fragments = 167
> Average fragments per file = 1.00
> Total unmovable files = 70
>
> Free space fragmentation
> Free space = 16.82 GB
> Total free space extent = 16,319
> Average free space per extent = 1 MB
> Largest free space extent = 1.90 GB
>
> Folder fragmentation
> Total folders = 17,465
> Fragmented folders = 1
> Excess folder fragments = 0
>
> Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
> Total MFT size = 217 MB
> MFT record count = 155,402
> Percent MFT in use = 69
> Total MFT fragments = 3
>
> Note: On NTFS volumes, file fragments larger than 64MB are not included
> in t
> he fragmentation statistics
>
> You do not need to defragment this volume.