Comments on: Windows 7 Fail: WinSAT Command Line

By: shane

shane — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:38:06 +0000

can i ask is there going to be more of this coz will be coming back

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 23:21:06 +0000

Leo: I’ve had the same problem too, I just turned on my computer now from standby, then Windows Aero turned off, then I looked in Task Manager and what do you know – winsat.exe. I think it definitely is caused by updating your graphics drivers because yesterday I updated my Nvidia through Windows Update, it does get annoying when it doesn’t tell you this…

By: Russ

Russ — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 06:31:17 +0000

I had never heard of this before tonight.
I was right in the middle of typing website code when—without warning—the screen went black, the fans all sped up, and the computer became completely unresponsive.
After about 30 seconds, everything came back on, but the computer was slower than usual and I noticed the hard disk was really working.
I thought, that’s weird, opened Task Manager to see what was working the disk, and found winSAT.exe, which was unknown to me so I googled it and found this site.
BTW, I hadn’t updated anything, hardware or software, on my computer for several weeks, and I have all the auto-update stuff turned off, so this was not triggered by an update. Also, my computer was definitely NOT idle at the time, so that part of MS’s description is wrong. I’m going to disable its schedule. It’s ridiculous that MS would have something so unnecessary scheduled to run automatically!

By: Noga

Noga — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 08:08:08 +0000

Didn’t know WinSAT auto ran. Was playing Assassin’s Creed 2 when everything started slowing down and the fans kicked up even higher. Killed the task now going back to playing. Thanks for telling me that it does that now its disabled also.

By: Shine-oh

Shine-oh — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:06:48 +0000

Still there in Windows 7!

By: pSynrg

pSynrg — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:07:49 +0000

Same experience brought me here, Mass Effect 2 obviously the cause Not many games have you ‘still’ up and engrossed at 1am on a Sunday morn…

By: Average Joe

Average Joe — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:11:19 +0000

@JM: lol, ME2 acting funny was what brought me here as well!

Games, the best diagnostic tools ever made.

By: JM

JM — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:11:02 +0000

Leo: I wonder if it’ll happen even if you’re in a full-screen game at the time? That would drive me crazy.

For the record…yes… yes it will.. as mentioned, I’d never heard of WinSAT actually… until just a few minutes ago, I was playing Mass Effect 2 (full screen, 1920×1200), and noticed it was getting kind of jumpy. (it was actually smooth through MOST of it, but there was one spot in the 5-6 minutes that it ran that I guess thrashed hardware a bit).

tabbing out, I see WinSAT was running, using 20% at first (and topping up at around 90% a bit into it)… googled, found this.. explained it well enough, but yes.. really annoying. I hate that there isn’t a simple toggle in Vista or Win7 that allows you to halt any non-necessary tasks (that is RESPECTED by all applications)… ESPECIALLY apps hiding in the base win7 install itself!

By: Joel

Joel — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:11:01 +0000

I’m on Windows 7 and just had this happen to me now. I was actually clicking around and browsing the web when Aero turned off and my fans sped up. I right away opened task manager and found that WinSAT was running.

Anyways, open up Task Scheduler and disable the task. There’s no point in leaving it on, and besides, whatever options may be set to keep it from getting in your way, it still does so.

By: Leo

Leo — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:23:51 +0000

Stephen: I've only seen it happen since upgrading to Windows 7.

Andy: Well spotted. I didn't even think to check for a scheduled task. Must've been coincidence that I upgraded my graphics drivers shortly before I noticed it kick in.

I wonder if it does a full run every Sunday, 1am, or if it only does that if it notices the hardware has changed? I'm guessing the latter.

Mine is also set to only start if the computer is idle, though the idle limit is set to only 10 minutes which seems very low. I swear that I've had it kick in exactly at 1am while I've been actively typing into a window but I guess I could've been watching a 10 minute video and have a faulty memory.

I'll up the idle limit and see if that improves things... ...Actually, what's the point of it? I'll just disable the task. I can update the numbers manually when/if I care about them.

Thanks again for noticing that Andy! I tend to forget the schedule tasks are there!

Leo