LSASS.EXE and constant HD access draining battery

[frank]

Hello. I have an IBM T22 with recently loaded XP Pro
(virgin load as well as SP1). The HD never stops running.
All IBM updates have been applied, power mgmt is on, no
background programs are running (auto update, file
indexing) and I went to MSCONFIG and turned all programs
off there as well. I ran AdAware 6 in case there was some
spyware. Still, the HD is being accessed each second.
In checking TASK MANAGER, I found a PROCESS-- LSASS.EXE
that shows I/O access each time the HD LCD goes on. Nothing
else is showing such frequent access. Unfortunately, it
cannot be stopped in task manager. I just found that LSASS
has something to do with security, so I posted my question
here hoping someone knows what is going on.
Does anyone know of a program that would pinpoint why this
is running or can tell me what it is doing? One person
suggested putting the process IPSEC Services in manaul.
This did not help...
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

 

[Roger Abell [MVP]]

lsass is a critical subsystem, the local security authority.
It has a number of things running within its process space,
but its services are also called upon by everything else.
This last part shows that it might not be the culprit, but that
something is driving it to appear to be.
I recall a problem with similar symptoms back in early
Whistler beta times (it became XP and W2k3). IIRC
it was a combination of a code change in the OS and
getting BIOSs to latest rev that quieted the disk.
If this is truely a fresh, virgin install - just MS code and
service to the OS, no third party stuff, then contact IBM
as it imay be in their hardware's happiness quota.
Shutting off unneeded services can help as one may be
what is driving lsass. When you run taskmanager and
sort by CPU usage or I/O are other processes showing
as continuously active (even is in small %age compared
to lsass) ?