• Welcome to Tux Reports: Where Penguins Fly. We hope you find the topics varied, interesting, and worthy of your time. Please become a member and join in the discussions.

What's causing hard drive activity even when my computer is idle?

L

Larry

Flightless Bird
Is there a way in XP to tell what Windows is doing at a particular moment?
Sometimes I am on the internet and the hard drive light will begin to work
furiously, and I wonder that AVG might be downloading virus updates. And the
hard drive light sometime also begins working when I am offline and doing
nothing. I downloaded a Microsoft update for an XP task bar search feature
maybe a year ago, and I've wondered if that was when this activity began.



Is there a way to know what might be happening in Windows or in something
else when this commotion starts?

Larry
 
P

PA Bear [MS MVP]

Flightless Bird
See
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/indexing.mspx

Larry wrote:
> Is there a way in XP to tell what Windows is doing at a particular moment?
> Sometimes I am on the internet and the hard drive light will begin to work
> furiously, and I wonder that AVG might be downloading virus updates. And
> the
> hard drive light sometime also begins working when I am offline and doing
> nothing. I downloaded a Microsoft update for an XP task bar search feature
> maybe a year ago, and I've wondered if that was when this activity began.
>
> Is there a way to know what might be happening in Windows or in something
> else when this commotion starts?
 
J

Jose

Flightless Bird
Re: What's causing hard drive activity even when my computer is idle?

On Jan 12, 5:46 pm, "Larry" <m...@noisp.com> wrote:
> Is there a way in XP to tell what Windows is doing at a particular moment?
> Sometimes I am on the internet and the hard drive light will begin to work
> furiously, and I wonder that AVG might be downloading virus updates. And the
> hard drive light sometime also begins working when I am offline and doing
> nothing. I downloaded a Microsoft update for an XP task bar search feature
> maybe a year ago, and I've wondered if that was when this activity began.
>
> Is there a way to know what might be happening in Windows or in something
> else when this commotion starts?
>
> Larry


You can guess or you can know. Even if you are not doing anything,
there are still things going on.

Download Autoruns which will reveal more than the Windows Task
Manager.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
 
T

thanatoid

Flightless Bird
"Larry" <me@noisp.com> wrote in
news:-OX1ljk9kKHA.2468@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl:

> Is there a way in XP to tell what Windows is doing at a
> particular moment?


The /general/ answer is a decent task manager. The windows task
manager is severely limited especially in the lack of info it
provides. You can't even look up file properties - if you want
to know, you have to start searching for the file, and don't
even get me started on Windows "search". There are good process
viewers like TaskInfo, get one.

> Sometimes I am on the internet and the
> hard drive light will begin to work furiously, and I wonder
> that AVG might be downloading virus updates.


NO program, I don't care WHAT it is should have "auto update"
turned on.

> And the hard
> drive light sometime also begins working when I am offline
> and doing nothing. I downloaded a Microsoft update for an
> XP task bar search feature maybe a year ago, and I've
> wondered if that was when this activity began.


I can't answer that, but I have NO MS software on this computer
except for the OS's because everything they don't outright steal
(or sometimes buy-out) from others is crappy and invasive and
the only reason I even USE Windows is because after 20 years I
am not about to learn a new OS, I'm too old for that.

> Is there a way to know what might be happening in Windows
> or in something else when this commotion starts?


Stop using MS Internet Explorer/Outlook and MSOffice when you
are online and this mysterious activity (I'll let you figure out
what is going on) will stop.

I highly recommend Opera, the latest version is incredible, and
for basic simple and faster than you thought possible browsing,
OffByOne - no flash, no scripting, so totally secure - does not
"do" some "modern" sites. Which are usually garbage anyway. I
mainly use it for my bank and for various sites which force you
to use javascript or flash, and I don't go to many of those.

--
There are only two classifications of disk drives: Broken drives
and those that will break later.
- Chuck Armstrong (This one I think, http://www.cleanreg.com/,
not the ball player. But who knows. I can't remember where I got
the quote. But it's true.)
 
H

HeyBub

Flightless Bird
thanatoid wrote:
> "Larry" <me@noisp.com> wrote in
> news:-OX1ljk9kKHA.2468@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl:
>
>> Is there a way in XP to tell what Windows is doing at a
>> particular moment?

>
> The /general/ answer is a decent task manager. The windows task
> manager is severely limited especially in the lack of info it
> provides. You can't even look up file properties - if you want
> to know, you have to start searching for the file, and don't
> even get me started on Windows "search". There are good process
> viewers like TaskInfo, get one.
>
>> Sometimes I am on the internet and the
>> hard drive light will begin to work furiously, and I wonder
>> that AVG might be downloading virus updates.

>
> NO program, I don't care WHAT it is should have "auto update"
> turned on.
>
>> And the hard
>> drive light sometime also begins working when I am offline
>> and doing nothing. I downloaded a Microsoft update for an
>> XP task bar search feature maybe a year ago, and I've
>> wondered if that was when this activity began.

>
> I can't answer that, but I have NO MS software on this computer
> except for the OS's because everything they don't outright steal
> (or sometimes buy-out) from others is crappy and invasive and
> the only reason I even USE Windows is because after 20 years I
> am not about to learn a new OS, I'm too old for that.
>
>> Is there a way to know what might be happening in Windows
>> or in something else when this commotion starts?

>
> Stop using MS Internet Explorer/Outlook and MSOffice when you
> are online and this mysterious activity (I'll let you figure out
> what is going on) will stop.


Heh! Not if the activity is caused by the MS indexing function. Or a bit of
malware that's sending a quarter-million spams.

>
> I highly recommend Opera, the latest version is incredible, and
> for basic simple and faster than you thought possible browsing,
> OffByOne - no flash, no scripting, so totally secure - does not
> "do" some "modern" sites. Which are usually garbage anyway. I
> mainly use it for my bank and for various sites which force you
> to use javascript or flash, and I don't go to many of those.



A few non-MS products actually cause your cat to develop warts. Using a
non-MS bit of software is roughly equivalent to dating a blow-up doll:
cheap, attractive (at a distance), and easy to use.
 
Top