I'm curious

I'm curious

With a different OS on my old desktop computer I kept a process meter
running and it was nil most of the time after it sat for a while.  The
hard drive was never accessed.

On my laptop with XP Pro I expected it to be even quieter to save the
battery, but any time the screen is up I see the drive light coming on
every few seconds no matter what power configuration it's in.

What kind of sense does this make?

JimL

-- 

If Obama becomes president the media will then try to destroy him simply because he is president, 
just as they did so very well with Bush.

date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:39:44 -0400 author: unknown

Re: I'm curious

> With a different OS on my old desktop computer I kept a process meter
> running and it was nil most of the time after it sat for a while.  The
> hard drive was never accessed.
>
> On my laptop with XP Pro I expected it to be even quieter to save the
> battery, but any time the screen is up I see the drive light coming on
> every few seconds no matter what power configuration it's in.
>
> What kind of sense does this make?
>
> JimL

A lot of sense. It's highly likely it's doing exactly what it was told 
to do, but since you included exactly ZERO information all that's 
possible is a few guess at the most likely things.  Things such as:
--  Your antivirus is doing idle-time scanning,
--  The Disk Indexing Service is running & indexing files
--  and any of a thousand or so other things you or programs you 
installed or someone else might have set up to run when the computer 
isn't being used, such as backups, defrags, checkups, hardware tests, 
etc. etc. etc. etc. etc..  Heck, worst case you could even had been 
zombied and all that activity is due to the hundreds of thousands of 
spams your computer is sending out while you think it's idle.  Or maybe 
it's just a simple malware that does nothing but endlessly exercise the 
hard drive, or searches for personal information to send out the second 
you open a browser, or maybe it's a 0-day bomb getting ready to go off, 
or the hard drive/s and partition/s are being overwritten with garbage 
or self replicating malware - who knows?

Check this out:
My old car is quieter than my new car.  Can you tell me why that would 
be?  I'd think newer cars, especially a hopped up hemi like this new 
one, would be super quiet, com,pared to my 1946 4 cylinder Vauxhaul 
Tourer.
  I just gave you many magnitudes more info than you provided in your 
post, but ... none of it's any good to hazard the reasons behind what I 
asked about.  Even though it looks like I gave you info to work with, I 
gave you zip to work with.  Even "new" is an ambiguous term, as is hemo, 
hopped up, and so on.

But at least you got to vent your curiousity so maybe it's not a total 
loss.  Right?  ;^]
BTW, I am NOT suggesting you have malware or viruses, although it's 
possible.

Cheers,

Twayne

date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 19:13:38 -0400 author: Twayne

Re: I'm curious

"Twayne"  said:

>> What kind of sense does this make?
>>
>> JimL

>A lot of sense. It's highly likely it's doing exactly what it was told 
>to do, but since you included exactly ZERO information all that's 

The constant accessing began the first day I put XP on the laptop.  So
your standard "You didn't ask your question with proper technical
precision," crap is beside the point.  But then there HAS to be at least
one sour grapes turkey on every NG.

Have  nice day.

JimL

-- 

If Obama becomes president the media will then try to destroy him simply because he is president, 
just as they did so very well with Bush.

date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:04:37 -0400 author: unknown

Re: I'm curious

inkleput@isp.com wrote:
> With a different OS on my old desktop computer I kept a process
> meter running and it was nil most of the time after it sat for a
> while.  The hard drive was never accessed.
>
> On my laptop with XP Pro I expected it to be even quieter to save
> the battery, but any time the screen is up I see the drive light
> coming on every few seconds no matter what power configuration it's
> in.
>
> What kind of sense does this make?

Something is configured on the laptop (either by you or the original 
manufacturer or by some third party program you or the original manufacturer 
(or anyone else who has installed something on your laptop) installed either 
on purpose or through some malware infestation) to access the disk and/or 
the data it contains in some way.

- AntiVirus scans
- Disk "optimization"
- An applications trying to access the Internet to check for updates
- A background process doing something....

The hard disk drive light is not the same as a "process meter" by a long 
shot. ;-)  Install the process meter and see what it tells you.

-- 
Shenan Stanley
     MS-MVP
-- 
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 20:38:57 -0500 author: Shenan Stanley

Re: I'm curious

> "Twayne"  said:
>
>>> What kind of sense does this make?
>>>
>>> JimL
>
>> A lot of sense. It's highly likely it's doing exactly what it was
>> told to do, but since you included exactly ZERO information all
>> that's
>
> The constant accessing began the first day I put XP on the laptop.  So
> your standard "You didn't ask your question with proper technical
> precision," crap is beside the point.  But then there HAS to be at
> least one sour grapes turkey on every NG.
>
> Have  nice day.
>
> JimL

Sorry.  Wrong.  It still specifically and precisely applies.

OK, then here's some advice on what to do instead of what you asked:
Do a full clean install of XP.  Then wait for indexing to complete 
before you install anything else.  It'll take awhile & you'll see lots 
of disk activity meanwhile.  Then, oh, wait; seems like i'm repeating 
myself, lol,

date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 11:24:29 -0400 author: Twayne

Re: I'm curious

"Twayne"  said:

>Do a full clean install of XP. 

It did it on a full, clean install.  Oh wait.  I'm repeating myself.

JimL

-- 

If Obama becomes president the media will then try to destroy him simply because he is president, 
just as they did so very well with Bush.

date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:32:08 -0400 author: unknown

Re: I'm curious

> "Twayne"  said:
>
>> Do a full clean install of XP.
>
> It did it on a full, clean install.  Oh wait.  I'm repeating myself.
>
> JimL

OK, then the answer is, it's building an index, based on that little bit 
of additional information.

date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 20:47:39 -0400 author: Twayne