Windows XP Hard Drive Continuously Running

[m]

I built a new rig with an E6400/ECS P965-A/1GB RAM/SATA(3GB) WD Caviar
Drive. Dual boot with Windows 2000 and XP on it. When I installed XP I
noticed that the hard drive was continuously running, this is even before I
installed the drivers for the network card, so unless there's a virus on the
XP install(please no MS comments) I cannot believe this is virus related(I
also did a virus scan and nothing was found). Did some digging with
filemon, processmon, etc. Looks like excessive read/writes to the registry,
specifically around the applications Winlogon, lsass and crsass. I've seen
quite a few posts on the net about this type of issue, doesn't appear anyone
has found a solution so I am poking and hoping by posting here. Now note my
CPU is sitting at <1% utlilization so it's not like this is slowing down the
machine. But I am very concerned that the hard drive being accessed
continuously will degrade the life of the drive.

I logged in to XP under safe mode and the hard drive activity is still
there, so it doesn't appear to be a driver issue. Also when I login under
2000 there is no hard drive activity, once she boots up she's done hashing
away on the hard drive.

I've done some things like shutdown the indexing on the drives and also
shutting down the auto restore point in XP. No help.

I looked at my other computers here and they also show access to the hard
drive continuously from Winlogon, lsass and crsass, although I do not see
the drive light on with these machines nor do I hear the hard drive hashing
away.

I also installed XP again to attempt to see if it was something I installed
post install of XP, no dice, same hard drive activity.

I hope this is not normal XP behavior otherwise this is an MS conspiracy
with the HD manufacturers to sell more drives.

Any thoughts? This newsgroup is a knowledgable group so this is why I
thought I would throw it up against the wall here and see if anyone had any
insight.

I have a thread going with MS to see if they can help solve the problem(yes
someone from MS actually responded to my question surprisingly).

Thanks! If I find the solution I'll post it here.

 

[JAD]

what does the task manager (performance) say about CPU usage?
office suite installed? Find fast installed (MS)?
Virtual memory settings are?

 

[m]

Office 2003 is installed but the hard drive deal preceded the installation
of office. CPU usage is sitting at <1%. Uninstalled MS indexing service
for Windows as well as uPnP. Doesn't change things...

Now I am wondering if perhaps I am misinterpreting the drive light on my
case. It's an Antec Sonata....has a green led and yellow led on the front.
When the computer is off the green led is on. When the computer is booted
up the green LED goes off....yellow led comes on during HD access. Once XP
boots up the yellow led stays on continuously(which is why I interpreted the
Hard Drive being on). However I do not audibly hear the drive hashing away
so perhaps I misinterpreting my drive light and the drive isn't really
hashing away. Now note in 2000 that yellow led does not stay on, it's only
on during boot of 2000. Blue LEDs on the front are on whenever the computer
is on.

Are there any tools out there where you can see the hard drive being
accessed in real time?

Thanks!

 

[jaster]

Office 2003 is installed but the hard drive deal preceded the
installation of office. CPU usage is sitting at <1%. Uninstalled MS
indexing service for Windows as well as uPnP. Doesn't change things...

Now I am wondering if perhaps I am misinterpreting the drive light on my
case. It's an Antec Sonata....has a green led and yellow led on the
front. When the computer is off the green led is on. When the computer
is booted up the green LED goes off....yellow led comes on during HD
access. Once XP boots up the yellow led stays on continuously(which is
why I interpreted the Hard Drive being on). However I do not audibly
hear the drive hashing away so perhaps I misinterpreting my drive light
and the drive isn't really hashing away. Now note in 2000 that yellow
led does not stay on, it's only on during boot of 2000. Blue LEDs on
the front are on whenever the computer is on.

Are there any tools out there where you can see the hard drive being
accessed in real time?

Are you sure you connected the leds correctly? BTW, ECS is known to me
for mislabeling connectors, compare onboard jumper descriptions to the
manuals descriptions. Are you confusing your power/sleep/hibernate
led with HD activity led?

When the computer is off no led lights should be on unless you have a
motherboard led to indicate power is connected. Old Intel m/b had a led
light on the motherboard which was always on as long as the psu was on but
the front leds were on only when the system was started.

 

[Paul]

Office 2003 is installed but the hard drive deal preceded the installation
of office. CPU usage is sitting at <1%. Uninstalled MS indexing service
for Windows as well as uPnP. Doesn't change things...

Now I am wondering if perhaps I am misinterpreting the drive light on my
case. It's an Antec Sonata....has a green led and yellow led on the front.
When the computer is off the green led is on. When the computer is booted
up the green LED goes off....yellow led comes on during HD access. Once XP
boots up the yellow led stays on continuously(which is why I interpreted the
Hard Drive being on). However I do not audibly hear the drive hashing away
so perhaps I misinterpreting my drive light and the drive isn't really
hashing away. Now note in 2000 that yellow led does not stay on, it's only
on during boot of 2000. Blue LEDs on the front are on whenever the computer
is on.

Are there any tools out there where you can see the hard drive being
accessed in real time?

Thanks!

Are you absolutely certain that the computer case LEDs are wired to
the correct pins on the PANEL header of the motherboard ?

Paul

 

[m]

Well interesting result here. I upgraded to the latest drivers for my
X1950Pro...no more continuous hard drive access. Problem gone. Odd.

 

[m]

More information: clearly it isn't the new ATI driver. I rebooted and the
drive light is now on continuously again. However as a test what I did was
put the computer into sleep mode and then brought it back. Now the drive
light is nice and quiet. So I suspect I can do a diff on activity prior to
sleep mode and then after to see what the culprit is on this one.

 

[Rod Speed]

More information: clearly it isn't the new ATI driver. I rebooted
and the drive light is now on continuously again. However as a test
what I did was put the computer into sleep mode and then brought it
back. Now the drive light is nice and quiet. So I suspect I can do
a diff on activity prior to sleep mode and then after to see what the
culprit is on this one.

Still looks like some sort of driver/OS config issue because you get that sleep effect.