# WinSAT just ran on its own!



## alexp999 (May 16, 2009)

I was on TPU as normal, when all of a sudden the display flickered and then aero had been disabled.

I could hear my graphics card sounding like it was under load, I looked down at my G15, and it was showing my GPU temp rising about 1*C every few seconds. I loaded up GPU-Z and my card had gone into 3d clocks.

Then I noticed my CPU temps was high and my CPu was being used about 80%. So I opened up Task manager and WinSAT.exe was the culprit, as soon as I ended the task everything went back to normal.

WinSAT is the Windows Self Assessment Tool, it is used for the rating system, i.e from 1 to 5.9 in Vista and 1 to 7.9 in Windows 7.

I'm lost as to how it started itself, I'm running Windows 7 RC 7100. I know its an RC, but


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## ownage (May 16, 2009)

That was me hacking your system. Nasty stuff you have on your harddrive man


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## DrPepper (May 16, 2009)

Maybe there is a keyboard shortcut. I doubt it though. Maybe a fluke or triggered by another program.


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## alexp999 (May 16, 2009)

ownage said:


> That was me hacking your system. Nasty stuff you have on your harddrive man



I doubt it, I'm behind three hardware FWs and two software FWs 



DrPepper said:


> Maybe there is a keyboard shortcut. I doubt it though. Maybe a fluke or triggered by another program.



Might have been, but I doubt they programmed a shortuct for it. It really freaked me out, I was just like WTF!


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## DrPepper (May 16, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> I doubt it, I'm behind three hardware FWs and two software FWs
> 
> 
> 
> Might have been, but I doubt they programmed a shortuct for it. It really freaked me out, I was just like WTF!



I just think maybe theres been a mistake somewhere and winsat.exe has been opened. It should come up the UAC thing though.


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## alexp999 (May 16, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I just think maybe theres been a mistake somewhere and winsat.exe has been opened. It should come up the UAC thing though.



nah, the performance rating thing doesnt need UAC, at least on Win 7 it doesnt.


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## DrPepper (May 16, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> nah, the performance rating thing doesnt need UAC, at least on Win 7 it doesnt.



Interesting. This could be a bug with the OS or a one off.


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## alexp999 (May 17, 2009)

Ok, WTF, its just done it again! 

I think I'm gonna run  virus scan then failing that upgrade to 7127 and see if that fixes it.


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## dracko86 (Oct 25, 2009)

WinSAT.exe determines your "Windows Experience Index"
After browsing through several places, I read someone mentioned it was a scheduled task.
Indeed it is, at least in my machine.

To disable the task:
1. Run taskschd.msc
2. Navigate to "Task Scheduler Library->Microsoft->Windows->Maintenance"
3. Select the task named WinSAT
4. right-click and disable it.

On my system it was scheduled to run once weekly, but since I felt it was nuisance and unhelpful I decided to kill it.

Hopefully it will not pop up again after this.


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