From another thread, someone with a PC with deteriorating performance wondering if it’s time to buy a new one:
Not wanting to hijack that thread with my problem, here it is:
I followed this advice and got a shitload of errors, which I’m not sure how to interpret.
Under System I am getting this error hundreds of time a day. Source is atapi. I would have said it’s a hard drive problem but I have SATA drives. Maybe my DVD is still IDE but I use it rarely so I don’t know why I would constantly be getting a controller error. I don’t see any behavioral problems so I don’t know if I should be concerned.
Error 5/11/2013 9:38:24 AM atapi 11 None
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort4.
Under Application I am also getting the following two errors, again hundreds of times a day. The diagnostics don’t mean anything to me, although could the first one be a Registry error?
Error 5/11/2013 9:29:24 AM Search 3083 Gatherer
The protocol handler Search.OneIndexHandler.1 cannot be loaded. Error description: Class not registered
.
Error 5/11/2013 9:31:14 AM VSS 12294 None
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Error calling a routine on the Shadow Copy Provider {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}. Routine returned E_INVALIDARG. Routine details GetSnapshot({00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000},0000000000217690).
Everybody has errors there – one of the current “I’m from Microsoft and we’re getting reports of errors on your computer” scams basically counts on this.
From the looks of that, it’s a problem with shadow copy (a form of history journaling) on the drive, probably that the drive doesn’t support it (likely if it’s a DVD drive) but it’s turned on anyway. Hundreds of them a day means something is probably misconfigured somewhere, but I wouldn’t let it bother you unless you’re seeing other issues.
For this specific one, right click on “My Computer” or otherwise get yourself to “System Properties”, open the “System Protection” tab, and you’ll see a list of drives. For each one, select “Configure” and look at the “Restore Settings.” Try changing each drive to “Turn off System Protection” for a day or so, one at a time, and see if one of them makes the problem go away. You can then either reformat that drive or leave system protection turned off on it (make sure you’re using other backup.) The “Previous Versions” is the shadow copy feature.
I am not having a specific performance problem, but I figured there is always room for improvement. I had never used Event Viewer before so I thought I would try it out. The warning, “If they’re plentiful, you’ve got a big problem” gave me pause. But maybe it’s overly alarmist.