my Norton AV indicates heavy disk writing by dataserv.exe--- why???

[BillP]

My Norton AV program keeps track of any program that does a great deal of disk writing- then let's me know, I'm not sure why it bothers but it does- usually it's some MS program doing something in the background but today Norton reported that APC's program dataserv.exe wrote something like 14,000 MB to the hard drive. What's that all about? The Norton AV also indicates if the heavy disk action is anything to worry about and it said no--- and that dataserv.exe is a program commonly used by Norton users so I have no particular concern other than during all that disk activity (first thing when I turned the PC on)- it slowed everything down until it was finished--- and, I just can't imagine why software for a UPS unit would do all this disk activity. What gives with it? What's it doing?
Joe

[BillP]

It just did it again- even though I have updates turned off and "send power info to APC" turned off.

Norton's "File Insight" routine reports that dataserv.exe's "Disk Read Activity" was 9,396 MB (total for this process".

Why on Earth does this program read anything on my hard drive? And why so much. I have a screen capture of the pop up which I've attached.

I noticed my computer slow down to a crawl for half a minute or so when my web browswer was trying to load a web page- apparently when dataserve.exe was nosing around my hard drive.

in my first message on this- I must have been wrong when I described the problem as a huge disk write- it must have been a huge disk read as happened this time.

Joe

[BillP]

good question but I have no idea- it seems that I've seen that message several times- maybe once every few months so it's not a big deal- other than the computer slows way down for awhile while it's doing that

Joe

[BillP]

i asked about this and found that Data Service keeps records of the energy usage of the computer and associated peripherals. The info is stored in a DB and retrieved to post in the UI. If you wants to stop the dataserv.exe, you can launch msconfig from the "run" option in the start menu and disable the service from starting when you boot up. then you'll most likely need to reboot or you can stop it manually from task manager i assume. I also recommend disabling the systray icon at that point so you do continually see that the dataserv is disabled.

[BillP]

OK, thanks for that info. I don't really mind all that much if Data Service does that- but it sure seems like a lot of data- several thousan MBs.

So, I'll presume if I disable it- doing that won't cause any problems with my APC software? I'm wary- because I had trouble installing it when I bought a new UPS. I had uninstalled the older software- but the new software wouldn't load- I needed APC tech support to lead me through registry deletions because the uninstall wasn't complete and I was NOT happy about that, so any tampering with their software worries me.
Joe

PS: I still think APC should come up with a new and improved software to fully clean up the uninstall.
Joe

[BillP]

yes, i don't disagree with you on the manual uninstall.

if you disable this service, you just wont see the energy usage in the UI. is there any way to disable norton from scanning this file all of the time to avoid any messages, now that you know the purpose? i am not sure why the database gets so large with all that data but i assume it is just based on the amount of energy usage you can see over time (like a few weeks or month).

[BillP]

As you can see on the screen capture that I included earlier today- Norton does have an option to not report on any file- so dataserve will continue to do its thing, but Norton will ignore it- that's probably the simplest solution for me.

I'm still suprised that dataserve does so much--- seems unbelievable- but whatever, I have bigger fish to fry. (ha, ha)
thanks again everyone
Joe

[BillP]

no problem. one last question but feel free to not worry about it - how long was that 9000MB + reading for? over a day, month, etc? just curious.

[BillP]

wow, dataserve just did it again- and this time according to Norton's pop up, dataserve read virtually my entire hard drive!

I've attached a screen capture which shows Norton's pop up and it gives the figures for what dataserve read and wrote.

What gives with this? I could tell it was going on too- because my web page was trying to view a site and it just froze up for a few minutes.

I'm not happy with this. Whatever the APC program is intending on doing- it's doing too much.
Joe

[BillP]

yes, i wouldnt be happy either. we will look deeper into it - can you tell us the PCPE version you are using? is it the latest of 3.0.0.1?

also, what OS is this? oh and if you look in the program directory, can you see if you can tell the file size on EnergyLog.mdb?

[BillP]

It's version 3.0 that came with the USPS- purchased recently- I'm hesitent to download/install a newer version after the trouble I had installing this version- the old version I had on the computer for years failed to properly uninstall, as noted earlier in this thread- after the tech led me through editing the registry, I'm not in a rush to update the program, fearful of another registy edit nightmare.

I'm using Vista.

I can't find the file EnergyLog.mdb, searched my entire computer for it.
Joe

PS: today I changed my email address- I went into the profile and updated it, so hopefully any responses will be correctly sent to my new address.

[BillP]

I Doubt it wrote 14GB to you hard drive more Like 1.4MB

[BillP]

You Can Disable Send Apc Power Quality Data In Powerchute

[BillP · Accepted solution]

OK, good suggestion- don't know why I didn't that of that one. But, I'm curious, why does it send so much information? Norton AV seemed to imply it sent a a great deal of info.
Joe