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I haven't had this problem anymore since I got an SSD.
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harold aptroot wrote: I haven't had this problem anymore since I got an SSD.
Very good input. I should've mentioned that too, because I have one machine where I've applied that solution also and it worked. It's crazy to think that you have to install an SSD in a windows machine though. Isn't it?
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I installed a SSD for my system's drive and the Windows Performance Index on the machine went up from 5.6 to 7.2! Disk IO seems to be twice as fast.
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I agree 200%.
It is just interesting that we have all these quadcore processors and Terabytes of RAM and all, but stupid I/O is still binding us up. Where's the roughage!?! 
And there are (kind of) issues with SSDs and they're still more expensive -- though dropping rapidly. Is it lazy programming that the IO is getting killed?
My machine would hum along if not for this disk read/writes. If only we could write to photons.
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So...your system slows to a crawl when it's busy with the drive, and an SSD makes your system responsive again.
Sounds to me like the SSD is just hiding the problem rather than addressing it. What's really causing all this disk activity? Normally I'd suggest your system is low on RAM and it's gotta page things to disk, but if you have plenty of it, it's hard to make that assertion without knowing more.
You do blame Chrome, and it is known to be a pig, by all accounts (I don't use it myself, so I wouldn't know), but still, how much RAM exactly is it chewing when you see this increase in drive activity?
Time to spend some quality time with Performance Monitor / Resource Monitor.
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newton.saber wrote: It's crazy to think that you have to install an SSD in a windows machine though. Isn't it?
It's only crazy if you think you "have" to.
But why would it be "crazy"? Why do they exist, if not to increase performance?
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Typical example on how to fight the symptoms while not curing the root cause. But an elegant one 
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I'd be seriously REALLY interested if there is an explanation to that. I would even suffer to make a complete fool of myself if this belongs to the obvious-things-every-programmer-should-know and I, well, didn't know, but I'd be relieved to know the answer - provided there is only one.
Win8 comes with an enhanced Task manager, with the monitoring function (Remember the good ol' sysinternals?), and this helps a bit to nail it down to the browser, as you have pointed out. Other good candidates are the freaking 1Gb daily "Java" updates (OK, slightly exaggerated here, sometimes only 2Gb every other day).
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I wrote a program which watches the file events on the disk using filesystemwatcher. When it goes crazy I turn it on and most of what I see is the browser cache updating. Nothing that stands out.
I've also turned off all auto-downloading of any updates (java, windows, etc). I run all updates but I only allow it to tell me about them so I can run them on my schedule.
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I do not run into this problem.
It is MY computer and I use it MY way! I connect my modem and browse the interweb, then kill the browser and finally disconnect the modem. The computer is MINE again to do what I want which is program development, not inane chatter.
Dave
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Get new computer?
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Slacker007 wrote: Get new computer?
There ought to be a government subsidy. A fast computer is my right!!!
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newton.saber wrote: A fast computer is my right!!!
As it should be. Fast computers for everyone!!!
Death and destruction to all slow, weak, and feeble computers, that stand in our way of greatness!!
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Surely this is a movement everyone can get behind.
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newton.saber wrote: There ought to be a government subsidy. A fast computer is my right!!!
I'm already rolling my eyes when I read about governments subsidizing the purchase of iPads in educational environments. Apple is already filthy rich, while schools are being provided with these toys they didn't ask for and are still left begging for money for things they really need.
You *really* want the government to subsidize the purchase of computers?
modified 9-Mar-15 15:36pm.
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Yeah! It's a healthcare issue: Everyone's sanity is at stake. Obamacare should bluddywell cover it!
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newton.saber wrote: There ought to be a government subsidy. A fast computer is my right!!!
You've just invented a fifth freedom - the freedom to compute!
The U.S. should start a new Foreign Aid program to provide supercomputers to every child (and adult...) in the world!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Excessive disk IO is a sign of imminent disk failure...
Better back up. 
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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What you don't seem to understand is that the browser is the most important thing on your computer -- far more important than even you and your family -- so it is only right that it claim thirty times more of your machine's resources than any well-written program should ever need.
Get your head straight.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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So true. The Browser is the OS.
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Pfft! It's Far more important than the OS!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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newton.saber wrote: The Browser is the OS.
And Google is my master. All hail Lord Google! 
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Slacker007 wrote: And Google is my master. All hail Lord Google!
I hope you are not being sarcastic, because Lord Google despises sarcasm and version 2.5.1 of GoogleDungeon comes out next week and you will be the first Luser forced to try it out. 
I hear the stretching rack still has some bugs though, so hope for that.
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AIUI, this is a "perfect storm" of an interaction between Windows' write-back cache and most (all?) browsers' method of caching data.
The browser cache consists of many relatively small files, typically all written during the current session. Windows attempts to cache as much I/O as possible, but in the interests of data integrity - must flush all 'dirty' data to disk at regular intervals.
Creating a large number of small files takes a disproportionate amount of time compared to a sequential write of the same amount of data. It is this that presumably causes the "hiccups" that you observe.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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