Strange computer phenomenon goin on

[Fear The Spear]

Strange computer phenomenon goin on (UPDATE : RESOLVED)

I've been noticing the disk space on hard drive has been getting chopped down in huge chunks over short periods of time, for no good reason. I started out at one point, with 23% free disk space, within a couple days it was 16%, a couple days, it was 13%, then a day later it was 9%, and another day later it's 6%.

It's making no sense, because I'm not downloading anything, or installing anything, that would remove that much disk space. Obviously, it would take humongous amounts of data to lose that much space, and it's just happening randomly.

It's as if some malicious program is eating up data/disk space, but I've run several anti-virus/spyware, and it's not catching anything ?
I'm scared if this continues, I'll be down to 0% disk space very soon at this rate, and the PC will shut down.

Any ideas ? Thanks

 

[Fear The Spear]

its probably your internet rep

internet "who" ?

I can't tell if you're joking or not, and if not, what you're referring to.

 

[Henry]

its probably your internet rep taking up so much space.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

its probably your internet rep taking up so much space.

Classic!!!

 

[renaissance]

I think he's saying your reputation on the internet proceeds you

In all seriousness, check this http://www.computerforum.com/150539-hard-drive-losing-free-space-no-reason.html

If that's not it, I would google "losing hard drive space for no reason" or variations of that. That is how I've figured out how to get rid of 95% of viruses I've ever gotten.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

and a disk cleanup always helps too

CC Cleaner is a good one.

 

[Nobody]

Since the most common cause of this hasn't been pointed out yet, I will let you know what is likely doing it, which is programs and/or processes running in the background.

If you have Windows, go to your start menu and type in task manager. Click the first option that pops up.

In the window that pops up, click the tab that says applications. Close anything on that list that you aren't using. Then click the processes tab. There should be something on that list with a large number listed in the CPU column. Large would be anything over 25-30 or so. Other than the internet, you really shouldn't have anything running at higher than 20. if you do, check out what it is to make sure you need it to be running. Google the name of the process if you're unsure whether you need it or not. If you don't need it, click on it and close it.

Then go to the services tab. Everything on that list will say either running or stopped. Everything that says running should be something you need running. if it isn't, click and stop it. Doing all of these things will reduce the CPU usage immediately.

After you finish that, you need to google how to change startup programs for whatever version of Windows you're running. It will tell you how to pull up the options for your startup programs, and you can switch it to only open the programs on startup that you absolutely need to run at startup.

A lot of programs and software will automatically set themselves to run at startup in the background without you having the option to decide. They will run all the time in the background, and you will have no idea they're running, but they will eat your CPU.

If you aren't running Windows, then I have no answers for you.

As for you Mike

To clear things up, I never said reputation, I said presence

 

[Lanky Livingston]

From how I understood the OP, his physical disk space is getting eaten up, not RAM.

 

[GreatRon]

Fear The Spear, what OS are you using?

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I believe you are confusing memory and CPU usage with actual drive space.

Me? Or Extreme?

 

[Fear The Spear]

Actually, I have fixed it, and oddly enough, it was from idea that was inspired by Mike's apparent joke.

He got me thinking about internet, and my novice mind started thinking, maybe there's something in Firefox that's clogging it up, from a possible history of a malicious site I visited. Not a real technical, and perhaps not logical theory, but I figured it was worth looking at. (By the way, I had already done a Disk Cleanup through System Tools, a Deletion of Internet History in Control Panel, and a Cleared All History under Tools in Firefox, all of which did nothing)

So I completely uninstalled my internet browser (Firefox), along with all customizations like Bookmarks (and I only had about 20 Bookmarks), and re-installed it.
Amazingly, that not only fixed it, but by huge proportions.
I have no explanation for this, but right before i uninstalled Firefox, I had about 6% (or 1.6 GB) free on my drive. AFTER I reinstalled it, I had about 23% (or 8.6 GB) on my drive.
Craziest thing I've ever seen. Uninstalling and reinstalling my web browser actually gave me back about 7 Gigs of space - all by itself !!
Perhaps there's a technical explanation that one of you experts can give for this.

 

[Elephant]

While I know it is not impenetrable, I am so glad I got a Mac! Oh and I like having 6TB of disk space!

 

[GreatRon]

Well, yes that is one of the advantages of PCs.

 

[Fear The Spear]

I learned something else from all of this. Something brand new and quite surprising.
System Restore points will continue to take away chunks of your hard drive until you delete them. I'm not sure yet, whether it happens every time you perform a System Restore, or create a System Restore Point. But until recently, I had never even heard of having to delete these remnants, and how much space they take up.