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Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

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Yodle
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Joined: December 11th, 2021, 9:22 pm

Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by Yodle »

Hi, not sure if this is known or if it counts as a bug, but I noticed after updating to HWiNFO 7.x and using the Gadget which writes to the Windows registry instead of the shared memory support my disk usage goes up. I know in the Rainmeter documentation it mentions it shouldn't cause extra writes to the disk, but I used task manager to verify that when I had the feature enabled, I was seeing disk writes every time HWiNFO updated (if I changed the interval I could see the graph change accordingly). I am wondering if this is a known issue or if the documentation might be wrong. Let me know if I am missing anything, thanks!
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SilverAzide
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Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by SilverAzide »

Yodle wrote: December 11th, 2021, 9:26 pm Hi, not sure if this is known or if it counts as a bug, but I noticed after updating to HWiNFO 7.x and using the Gadget which writes to the Windows registry instead of the shared memory support my disk usage goes up. I know in the Rainmeter documentation it mentions it shouldn't cause extra writes to the disk, but I used task manager to verify that when I had the feature enabled, I was seeing disk writes every time HWiNFO updated (if I changed the interval I could see the graph change accordingly). I am wondering if this is a known issue or if the documentation might be wrong. Let me know if I am missing anything, thanks!
Are you sure you are seeing writes and not reads?

I'm asking because I have a set of external drives that are somewhat noisy. When HWiNFO runs (all versions, even before v7.x), I can hear a constant "tick tick tick tick" from every drive at 1 second intervals. Stopping HWiNFO stops the ticking. I can also make this stop by going into HWiNFO and disabling the monitoring of each physical drive (which I don't use anyway, but that's just me). Once HWiNFO stops monitoring my disks, no more ticking. In other words, HWiNFO is constantly hitting every drive in your system, not just the drive Windows is on.

You mentioned you are using the Gadgets; if so, on my system the Drives Meter shows virtually no write activity if the system is idle. At some point the disks will flush their caches, but the write activity from HWiNFO is negligible. I believe this concern came up and was discussed on another thread regarding the HWiNFO change to Shared Memory. If you run a utility like ProcMon and look at the info going in and out of the Registry, it's an absolute firehose of data... the little bit added by HWiNFO is a drop in the ocean.
Yodle
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Joined: December 11th, 2021, 9:22 pm

Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by Yodle »

I'm fairly certain most of the activity is writes based on the test I just performed to take these screenshots. Here is what my system looked like without the HWiNFO gadget writing to registry turned on (but HWiNFO itself still being open). Once I enabled the gadget mode, it looked like this instead, which does have both reads and writes occurring every 2 seconds, but it seems throughout the 15 or so seconds I ran that the majority seemed to be writes (average around 1MB/s).

I haven't ever looked at the registry input/output before, maybe I'll take a look and see if it actually matters if HWiNFO is writing that often.
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SilverAzide
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Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by SilverAzide »

That's interesting, you can definitely see a pattern on your system. But unfortunately, on mine, I see no such regular pattern like that. My graph shows virtually no difference whether HWiNFO is running or not.

Do you have write-caching disabled or something? I'm not sure why there is such a distinct difference before and after on your system... :confused:
Yodle
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Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by Yodle »

I checked, I do have write-caching enabled so I'm not sure either. Though just to clarify, it's only when the Gadget setting is enabled that I see the difference. Just having HWiNFO open by itself doesn't cause the extra disk usage. Perhaps I should make a post on the HWiNFO forums to see what they think?
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SilverAzide
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Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by SilverAzide »

Yodle wrote: December 12th, 2021, 4:28 am I checked, I do have write-caching enabled so I'm not sure either. Though just to clarify, it's only when the Gadget setting is enabled that I see the difference. Just having HWiNFO open by itself doesn't cause the extra disk usage. Perhaps I should make a post on the HWiNFO forums to see what they think?
One question... how many sensor "entries" are you writing to the registry? Did you select all of them, or just the ones you need for the skins you are using?
Yodle
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Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by Yodle »

SilverAzide wrote: December 12th, 2021, 4:49 am One question... how many sensor "entries" are you writing to the registry? Did you select all of them, or just the ones you need for the skins you are using?
With that screenshot I just had them all enabled; I had planned to lower it to the amount I need for the skin (maybe around 50) but once I noticed the writes I stopped working on that. I can try re-doing it and see how much lower it gets.
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SilverAzide
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Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by SilverAzide »

Yodle wrote: December 12th, 2021, 6:01 am With that screenshot I just had them all enabled; I had planned to lower it to the amount I need for the skin (maybe around 50) but once I noticed the writes I stopped working on that. I can try re-doing it and see how much lower it gets.
Yeah, I'd suggest cutting it down to just the ones you need. HWiNFO starts taking a lot of CPU when you write everything.
Yodle
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Re: Rainmeter + HWiNFO 7.x writing to disk using the workaround after the removal of shared memory

Post by Yodle »

Yeah I cut it down to around 80 (I'm only using around 70 so I could go even further but I left myself a few extra that I might add to my skin at some point) and the disk usage doesn't seem too much different now when I toggle the Gadget on or off. I think there's still a difference, but maybe if I increase the polling rate or something I won't be too worried about it anymore. Or I could just pay for HWiNFO and revert my skin back to using shared memory and not need to worry about risking my drive :lol:
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