Hi. I am using an old Pentium PC I have lying around to run my home
automation program. That is all it needs to do and since the program is tiny
I would hope the computer could run on minimal power consumption. I have
enabled power saving for the hard drive and the monitor and indeed they power
down. However, the hard drive keeps powering back up every few minutes to do
something, God only knows what. I have gone into the Computer Administration
utilities to disable every kind of logging I can find and yet the hard drive
still powers up and down quite frequently. Of course I could disable power
management for the hard drive and save wear and tear on it, but I cannot see
any reason for it to be accessed. Since one of the reasons I have home
automation is to save energy by turning off unused lights and appliances, it
would be nice if my computer would cooperate.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other properties in Windows I can set
or services I can shut down that would reduce disk access?

Or, is there a property I can set to move frequently accessed system files
to a USB RAM disk?

operating system?

page file on?

not enough memory?

program access's to harddrive for orders?


>-----Original Message-----
>Hi. I am using an old Pentium PC I have lying around to
run my home
>automation program. That is all it needs to do and since
the program is tiny
>I would hope the computer could run on minimal power
consumption. I have
>enabled power saving for the hard drive and the monitor
and indeed they power
>down. However, the hard drive keeps powering back up
every few minutes to do
>something, God only knows what. I have gone into the
Computer Administration
>utilities to disable every kind of logging I can find and
yet the hard drive
>still powers up and down quite frequently. Of course I
could disable power
>management for the hard drive and save wear and tear on
it, but I cannot see
>any reason for it to be accessed. Since one of the
reasons I have home
>automation is to save energy by turning off unused lights
and appliances, it
>would be nice if my computer would cooperate.
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions for other properties in
Windows I can set
>or services I can shut down that would reduce disk access?
>
>Or, is there a property I can set to move frequently
accessed system files
>to a USB RAM disk?
>.
>

HDD working when its not suppost to or system using up all
its ressources when its not running any program you know
of are two of many indications of a possible virus.

where did you get this home automation system. i'm very
interested and would like to learn more. Is there a link
to where i can read about it?

holytechie wrote:

> Hi. I am using an old Pentium PC I have lying around to run my home
> automation program. That is all it needs to do and since the program is tiny
> I would hope the computer could run on minimal power consumption. I have
> enabled power saving for the hard drive and the monitor and indeed they power
> down. However, the hard drive keeps powering back up every few minutes to do
> something, God only knows what. I have gone into the Computer Administration
> utilities to disable every kind of logging I can find and yet the hard drive
> still powers up and down quite frequently. Of course I could disable power
> management for the hard drive and save wear and tear on it, but I cannot see
> any reason for it to be accessed. Since one of the reasons I have home
> automation is to save energy by turning off unused lights and appliances, it
> would be nice if my computer would cooperate.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions for other properties in Windows I can set
> or services I can shut down that would reduce disk access?
>
> Or, is there a property I can set to move frequently accessed system files
> to a USB RAM disk?

Is the indexing service running?