A while back I added an Intel SSD drive to my system (Intel X-25 80GB).
Compiling on that drive is a dream - sooo much faster for large projects!
But starting sometime around then, I seem to be having system pauses where
the whole computer, or perhaps just a process or two, completely freeze for
15-30 seconds. Originally that SSD was my system drive, and since I
suspected it, I rebuilt everything with a conventional hard disk for the
system drive and the SSD for my data/compile drive. The pauses definitely
decreased, but they still happen.
I really don’t know what causes the pauses - could be network, SSD, etc. ?
Current OS is Win 2008 R2 with all patches. Happened with Vista too.
Anyone have any ideas about how to diagnose something like this? Any
performance counters that might prove useful?
Oh one other thing: This happens in two separate computers where the SSD is
the only thing the same between them, thus making me think it’s a
drive/driver/swap thing.
A while back I added an Intel SSD drive to my system (Intel X-25 80GB). Compiling on that drive is a dream – sooo much faster for large projects! But starting sometime around then, I seem to be having system pauses where the whole computer, or perhaps just a process or two, completely freeze for 15-30 seconds. Originally that SSD was my system drive, and since I suspected it, I rebuilt everything with a conventional hard disk for the system drive and the SSD for my data/compile drive. The pauses definitely decreased, but they still happen.
I really don’t know what causes the pauses – could be network, SSD, etc… ? Current OS is Win 2008 R2 with all patches. Happened with Vista too. Anyone have any ideas about how to diagnose something like this? Any performance counters that might prove useful?
Oh one other thing: This happens in two separate computers where the SSD is the only thing the same between them, thus making me think it’s a drive/driver/swap thing.
Is it only the UI which pauses or some running processes too? for instance, if you have a build process running - is it paused too? or only the keyboard and the mouse?
UI pauses can be due to some dirty buggy 3rd party software, including shell extensions.
“Doug Nebeker” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntfsd… A while back I added an Intel SSD drive to my system (Intel X-25 80GB). Compiling on that drive is a dream - sooo much faster for large projects! But starting sometime around then, I seem to be having system pauses where the whole computer, or perhaps just a process or two, completely freeze for 15-30 seconds. Originally that SSD was my system drive, and since I suspected it, I rebuilt everything with a conventional hard disk for the system drive and the SSD for my data/compile drive. The pauses definitely decreased, but they still happen.
I really don’t know what causes the pauses - could be network, SSD, etc. ? Current OS is Win 2008 R2 with all patches. Happened with Vista too. Anyone have any ideas about how to diagnose something like this? Any performance counters that might prove useful?
Oh one other thing: This happens in two separate computers where the SSD is the only thing the same between them, thus making me think it’s a drive/driver/swap thing.
I’m not sure if background processes pause or not – haven’t been able to
see it. It’s definitely not just Explorer or file open dialogs – often
Visual Studio freezes too (which made me think again that perhaps the
underlying SSD which is where the open files are is pausing). IIRC the
mouse still responds, but often I can’t change focus between apps. I’ll
have to start keeping notes so I have more definitive answers.
Doug
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Maxim S. Shatskih
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 7:20 AM
To: Windows File Systems Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntfsd] Off Topic: System pauses
Is it only the UI which pauses or some running processes too? for instance,
if you have a build process running - is it paused too? or only the keyboard
and the mouse?
UI pauses can be due to some dirty buggy 3rd party software, including
shell extensions.
“Doug Nebeker” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntfsd… A while back I added an Intel SSD drive to my system (Intel X-25 80GB). Compiling on that drive is a dream - sooo much faster for large projects! But starting sometime around then, I seem to be having system pauses where the whole computer, or perhaps just a process or two, completely freeze for 15-30 seconds. Originally that SSD was my system drive, and since I suspected it, I rebuilt everything with a conventional hard disk for the system drive and the SSD for my data/compile drive. The pauses definitely decreased, but they still happen.
I really don’t know what causes the pauses - could be network, SSD, etc. ? Current OS is Win 2008 R2 with all patches. Happened with Vista too. Anyone have any ideas about how to diagnose something like this? Any performance counters that might prove useful?
Oh one other thing: This happens in two separate computers where the SSD is the only thing the same between them, thus making me think it’s a drive/driver/swap thing.
Thanks for any ideas. Doug
— NTFSD is sponsored by OSR
For our schedule of debugging and file system seminars (including our new fs mini-filter seminar) visit: http://www.osr.com/seminars
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Scott Noone
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 7:20 AM
To: Windows File Systems Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntfsd] Off Topic: System pauses
I d start with xperf and see if it can identify what s going on in the system during the pause:
A while back I added an Intel SSD drive to my system (Intel X-25 80GB). Compiling on that drive is a dream sooo much faster for large projects! But starting sometime around then, I seem to be having system pauses where the whole computer, or perhaps just a process or two, completely freeze for 15-30 seconds. Originally that SSD was my system drive, and since I suspected it, I rebuilt everything with a conventional hard disk for the system drive and the SSD for my data/compile drive. The pauses definitely decreased, but they still happen.
I really don t know what causes the pauses could be network, SSD, etc ? Current OS is Win 2008 R2 with all patches. Happened with Vista too. Anyone have any ideas about how to diagnose something like this? Any performance counters that might prove useful?
Oh one other thing: This happens in two separate computers where the SSD is the only thing the same between them, thus making me think it s a drive/driver/swap thing.
Thanks for any ideas.
Doug
— NTFSD is sponsored by OSR
For our schedule of debugging and file system seminars (including our new fs mini-filter seminar) visit: http://www.osr.com/seminars
We had similar hangs on several (60%) Dell Precision T7500 machines Windows 7 x64. We identified that problem is causing branded integrated LSI SAS/SATA controler in combination with WD Caviar Blue HDD. The same non-branded controler as PCIe card didn’t exhibit the problem. Also if we changed the HDD, hangs were almost eliminated. It was really weird.
I’m not an expert on SSDs. However I’ve bought an SSD drive for my laptop
and so I’ve been reading some forums :)… The idea was that, depending on
the controller’s features, the SSD might over time get to a stage where it
needs to run garbage collection in order to find new blocks (since SSD need
to do wear-leveling behind the scenes and they also use IO blocks much
larger than a sector so they optimize performance by trying to always write
to a new block). The pause you’re seeing might be this garbage collection…
Anyway, this is a good link that covers performance degradation in SSDs http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829/1.
There are a couple of things to try. First, run on Win7 so you get the
benefit of TRIM commands. Second, you could copy your data someplace,
re-initialize the drive so that it knows all the blocks are empty and then
copy the data back. This should make your SSD behave like new again. (see
this http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829/13).
There is also a DiskMon tool from sysinternals, that monitors IO at disk
level … It’s pretty old but might still do the trick.
We had similar hangs on several (60%) Dell Precision T7500 machines Windows
7 x64. We identified that problem is causing branded integrated LSI SAS/SATA
controler in combination with WD Caviar Blue HDD. The same non-branded
controler as PCIe card didn’t exhibit the problem. Also if we changed the
HDD, hangs were almost eliminated. It was really weird.
Bronislav Gabrhelik
NTFSD is sponsored by OSR
For our schedule of debugging and file system seminars (including our new fs
mini-filter seminar) visit: http://www.osr.com/seminars
You wouldn’t be running an AV that happens to be updating itself at that
time, would you? I won’t name names, but there is a certain very large AV
that recently got acquired by a certain large chip maker that has an update
that turns the foreground app, whatever it may be, into a zombie
(temporarily). Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to tie up background
processes. If Process Explorer happens to be running at the time (almost
always on my systems), I can verify that the update thing will invariably
have just started.
I’ve seen that obnoxious behavior at two separate employers, so I’m
reasonably confident of the conclusion. I wonder *how* it does that?
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Doug Nebeker Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 10:04 AM To: Windows File Systems Devs Interest List Subject: [ntfsd] Off Topic: System pauses
A while back I added an Intel SSD drive to my system (Intel X-25 80GB). Compiling on that drive is a dream - sooo much faster for large projects! But starting sometime around then, I seem to be having system pauses where the whole computer, or perhaps just a process or two, completely freeze for 15-30 seconds. Originally that SSD was my system drive, and since I suspected it, I rebuilt everything with a conventional hard disk for the system drive and the SSD for my data/compile drive. The pauses definitely decreased, but they still happen.
I really don’t know what causes the pauses - could be network, SSD, etc. ? Current OS is Win 2008 R2 with all patches. Happened with Vista too. Anyone have any ideas about how to diagnose something like this? Any performance counters that might prove useful?
Oh one other thing: This happens in two separate computers where the SSD is the only thing the same between them, thus making me think it’s a drive/driver/swap thing.
Thanks for any ideas.
Doug
— NTFSD is sponsored by OSR
For our schedule of debugging and file system seminars (including our new fs mini-filter seminar) visit: http://www.osr.com/seminars