why is there hard drive activity when winxp is idle for a while?

[RayEarth]

I noticed when I leave winxp pro idle for around 15-20 mins, the hard drive light goes on and there's activity for a long time. I have to click the mouse somewhere or open and close a browser to stop the sound of the hard drive activity. This is really annoying when I''m doing my homework and just leave the computer. What causes the harddrive to seem active when it's idle? this didn't happen in win98 and is there any way to stop this? it sounds like it's paging a file or something similar to the sound of when you copy a large file from the harddrive into another folder.

 

[bsobel]

It could be a variety of things, most likely is the indexing service creating a catalog of files for faster searching (you can disable this if you want from the Search pane in explorer)

Bill

 

[RayEarth]

indexing services is already disabled, what are the other possibilities?

 

[GrumpyMan]

Could be system restore doing it's thing.

 

[cleverhandle]

Also, I think that if XP is recently installed, it automatically adjusts itself somehow to run your favorite applications a bit faster. So if you recently switched, that might have something to do with it.

 

[RayEarth]

thanks for the replies.

I installed winxp pro on friday, so it is fairly recent. I have turned off auto-updates, system restore, removed arrows on shortcut icons, removed norton protected recycle bin, added custom resolutions running at 170hz, ran norton speed disk 2002, and eveyrthing I can think of that would make winxp perform the way I want.

I went to tweakxp.com and checked the info. they have there. This hard disk activity is the last thing I can't get rid of, I tried installing cacheman 5.11 hoping the setting might change something but it didn't help. SP1 has been installed along with all the latest updates on other software as well. Have any of you left winxp idle on the desktop with nothing running and have your harddrive go active after 15-20mins for no apparent reason?

 

[corkyg]

You may have a program doing something in background - like checking mail. Auto updates also reside in some programs and stopping one does not stop the others.

 

[bsobel]

I have turned off auto-updates, system restore, removed arrows on shortcut icons, removed norton protected recycle bin, added custom resolutions running at 170hz, ran norton speed disk 2002, and eveyrthing I can think of that would make winxp perform the way I want.

Sigh. Why disable three things (updates, sr, recycle bin) that can help recover your system if you run into problems?

On a more usefull note 🙂 download filemon from sysinternals.com. Leave the logging running and check it after the machine goes active, that should give us a better idea of what process is doing the work and to what files.

Bill

 

[Buz2b]

I agree with the previous post that questions why you would disable the very things that could help you later on or at least increase your system speed. However, that is your perogative and your right. So, to help you out a bit, what I would do is when this "activity" starts, just hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE to bring up the Windows Task Manager box. First check the Applications tab to see if any programs are running and then move on to the Processes tab to see what is going on there. Mind you, there are going to be many items listed and perhaps this is where your "trouble" awaits. XP seems to have a multitude of "processes" that run in the background. There are many that are just plain necessary for the OS to function. You need to filter through those to get to what would cause the intense use of the HD that you describe. There are several sites that can help you go through and identify these processes. Just do a google search for XP Processes or XP background programs.
At any rate, I would caution you as you go about closeing or canceling these items. You may find that you drastically hinder you system by doing so.
Of course, you could always do what others sometimes do........go Linux. 😉 Haven't tried it myself but I'm surprised someone hasn't mentioned it before!

 

[RayEarth]

I will try out your suggestions, such as pushing alt-ctrl-del to see what's happening, and then try filemon if are else fails. I have the same 4 items running in the background now as I did in win98se prior to the upgrade. I did a clean install, and the items running are the norton anti-virus auto protect, internet security firewall, cacheman, and a popup filter. I doubt these programs are the cause because they didn't cause this in win98.

I thought of the possible that it could be the paging file, since I have that conservativeswapfile option in win98 set so that it would use my ram up 1st before going to a page file, but currently xp is using a 43MB page file. anyone know how to set winxp to use all the ram 1st before using a paging file?

The strange thing is there is always unknown hard drive activity when I leave the system idle for 15+mins on the desktop, when I'm downloading, or in ms office, but If I leave the system idle running a game on an emulator or the serenescreen screensaver there's no HDD activity.

anyone remember if this: ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 works in winxp or is it only for win9x series?

 

[Buz2b]

If I leave the system idle running a game on an emulator or the serenescreen screensaver there's no HDD activity

Sounds like your anti-virus software. Norton is famous for using CPU cycles. And could also be good old MS Office Find Fast, if you didn't kill that little treasure. Maybe a bit of both.

 

[bsobel]

Sounds like your anti-virus software. Norton is famous for using CPU cycles

Actually it sounds like you don't know anything about anti-virus software. Unless there is a scheduled scan running (and that isn't idle dependant, he probably has one once a week at a fixed time, if any) NAV only generates IO via Autoprotect when something else generates IO (autoprotect scans and accessed file in real time). It doesn't sit around and access files that weren't requested by something else.

Bill

 

[Buz2b]

Actually it sounds like you don't know anything about anti-virus software

And just what the hell did I say to offend you?!? You have every right to disagree with me (and please do) but cut the crap of telling people that they don't know what they are talking about; me or anyone else for that matter. Stick to the issues at hand, not the individuals. Otherwise, keep your crap to yourself. As a "Golden Member" you ought to know better than that.
As to the anti-virus software that I know "nothing about", I was a beta tester for Norton a couple of years ago; so I think I have a basis for understanding here. Oops! Didn't expect that did you?! There can be and are, scans that are done; scheduled or not.
It doesn't sit around and access files that weren't requested by something else.
"Background" scans are an integral part of most AV software and idle time is when they like to do it! And that can cause HDD activity. Actually pretty easy to understand for most of us.

Now, bsobel, if you want do any more accusations, take it to PM. Mine is always on and that's where it belongs. Otherwise, let's just try to help this individual as best we can.

 

[RayEarth]

well I haven't had need to try suggestions yet. Last night I found out that even if a person disables system restore from control panel that it is still enabled, sneaky microsoft!, so after I truly disabled system restore permenantly I let the system sit for over 30+mins, It did do anything. Hopefully anyone having this problem with unknown HHD activity can try to disable the system restore totally. (a side note is that I did fall asleep while waiting for the sound but I'm sure if the sound came it would have woke me up since I wasn't in a truly deep sleep)

while searching google for info like buz2b suggested. I found on the microsoft site that they suggested to not disable the paging file, and that it should be 1.5 times the amount of ram, but I am wondering if anyone here is using the "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" in winxp to make it use all the memory before going to page fiel and if so, did it help improve your system?