I have a question about Stop Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk:

I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light still blanks wildly. How can I stop this? It really degrades my performance, not to mention that it's really annoying! Please help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

You say your Hard Drive is working.....But you have not started any programs....or intialized a keyboard command?????


On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 11:13 am, Luc wrote:
>I have a question about Stop
>Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk:

>
>
>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light
>still blanks wildly. How can I stop this? It really degrades my performance, not
>to mention that it's really annoying! Please help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 11:32 am, Stetson wrote:
>You say your Hard Drive is working.....But you have not started any programs....or
>intialized a keyboard command?????
> The computer is on and no programs are running and thr hard drive just goes berserk! The light flashes like crazy as if I were opening programs constantly. It really eats my performance, help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

you have to turn off the indexing function....the computer is constalntly buidling indexes and rebuiding them, that is what is going on. I am not sure yet how to do it though .. good luck


On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 12:17 pm, Luc wrote:
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 12:38 pm, Mike wrote:
>you have to turn off the indexing function....the computer is constalntly buidling
>indexes and rebuiding them, that is what is going on.
>
>I am not sure yet how to do it though ..
>
>good luck
>
> Well, that's also the problem. I did turn it off. It still goes nuts when nothing is happenning. right click My computer - properties click advanced tab click settings button under performance click advanced tab click change button under virtual memory click 'no paging file' radio button, click set button restart done this doesn't help for me though, help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

You need to go to Administrative Tools ,Services,when there scroll down the list 
of services untill you get to Indexing Service,double click this entry,on the general 
tab in the Startup type window select Disabled then the Stop button then apply & 
OK 

That should stop the disk thrashing 
Cheers HC





On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 11:13 am, Luc wrote:
>I have a question about Stop 
>Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk:

>
>
>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light 
>still blanks wildly.  How can I stop this?  It really degrades my performance, not 
>to mention that it's really annoying!  Please help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 1:31 pm, HC wrote:

>You need to go to Administrative Tools ,Services,when there scroll down the list 
>of services untill you get to Indexing Service,double click this entry,on the general 
>tab in the Startup type window select Disabled then the Stop button then apply & 
>OK 
>
>That should stop the disk thrashing 
>Cheers HC

Thanks for the reply, but it already is disabled.  What do I do if it is disabled 
and the light still blinks like crazy?
[Reply or follow-up to this message]

>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light
>still blanks wildly. How can I stop this? It really degrades my performance, not
>to mention that it's really annoying! Please help! After reading the other replies, try turning on WINDOWS TASK MANAGER (right click near the date-time icon, Task Bar). Click the PROCESSES TAB, click the VIEW drop-down menu, SELECT COLUMNS, CPU TIME. Click or double-click on the CPU TIME tab. Then you can see which application is using your CPU time the most. I found not just the Indexing part, but sometimes it is an anti-virus program, or a Defrag program. Sometimes you may have unknowingly downloaded a "fix-it" type of program that hunts for viruses, worms, or unnecessary windows (temp, etc) files.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I've followed this thread and am anxious to know whether anyone has found the solution. I have acquired a Highlander PIII-500 notebook with XP on it and it thrashes the hard disk to the point that sound and mouse movement is interrupted - very annoying indeed. Has anything been found other than the suggestions made here since April?


On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 5:18 pm, Luc wrote:
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I stopped all processes except csrss.exe (windows will reboot if this is topped), and yet I still get the blinks. When I removed my cd-rom drives, it stopped. Seems like a low level driver issue, not an application. This one is killing my disk performance on benchmarks, considering re-installing.


On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 1:07 pm, Luc wrote:
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I have the same problem. Windows XP pro with NTFS, which has been stable since it was installed. Problem started about three days ago with constant disk access in about 1-2 minute bursts. The problem is first apparent when Windows is loading (before desktop is displayed). Additionally the disk access can be triggered when windows explorer, my computer and application save dialog boxes are opened. It can also occur randomly though I think it is instigated with a disk access. When thrashing starts system virtually locks up until disk access stops. It seems more like a constant read/write sound rather then thrashing. I have run scandisk with no errors found + run 3 separate virus scanners and defragged. Any help appreciated.


On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 11:13 am, Luc wrote:
>I have a question about Stop
>Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk:

>
>
>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light
>still blanks wildly. How can I stop this? It really degrades my performance, not
>to mention that it's really annoying! Please help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

BINGO! This man has saved me froma nervous breakdown. Since installing XP, my HD had taken a beating from a sort of pulsing grind as has been described. Using this procedure I found that the second greatest use of CPU time was ZONE ALARM--the popular firewall thing. I disabled it and ...AHHHH...a silent hard drive at last. Dale


On Tuesday, June 4, 2002 at 7:32 pm, Greg Zeng wrote:
>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light
>still blanks wildly. How can I stop this? It really degrades my performance, not
>to mention that it's really annoying! Please help!
>
>After reading the other replies, try turning on WINDOWS TASK MANAGER (right click
>near the date-time icon, Task Bar).
>
>Click the PROCESSES TAB, click the VIEW drop-down menu, SELECT COLUMNS, CPU TIME.
> Click or double-click on the CPU TIME tab.
>
>Then you can see which application is using your CPU time the most. I found not
>just the Indexing part, but sometimes it is an anti-virus program, or a Defrag program.
> Sometimes you may have unknowingly downloaded a "fix-it" type of program that hunts
>for viruses, worms, or unnecessary windows (temp, etc) files.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

One other tip which may possibly help:

Under "Settings --> Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Services," check to 
see if the two RPC (Remote Procedure Call) services are running.  If not, start them, 
and set their startup type to "Automatic."  This has helped me immensely, although 
by no means has it completely cured the problem.

I've tried to find info on this problem on MS's Knowledge Base off and on for several 
years now, without much luck.  I wonder if anyone at MS even knows it *is* a problem...

Garth






On Tuesday, September 17, 2002 at 5:02 pm, Gaz wrote:
>I have the same problem.  Windows XP pro with NTFS, which has been stable since 
it 
>was installed.   Problem started about three days ago with constant disk access 
in 
>about 1-2 minute bursts.  The problem is first apparent when Windows is loading 
(before 
>desktop is displayed).  Additionally the disk access can be triggered when windows 
>explorer, my computer and application save dialog boxes are opened.  It can also 
>occur randomly though I think it is instigated with a disk access.  When thrashing 
>starts system virtually locks up until disk access stops.  It seems more like a 
constant 
>read/write sound rather then thrashing.  I have run scandisk with no errors found 
>+ run 3 separate virus scanners and defragged.  Any help appreciated.  
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Have some anti-virus programs been installed?


On Tuesday, September 17, 2002 at 5:02 pm, Gaz wrote:
>I have the same problem. Windows XP pro with NTFS, which has been stable since it
>was installed. Problem started about three days ago with constant disk access in
>about 1-2 minute bursts. The problem is first apparent when Windows is loading (before
>desktop is displayed). Additionally the disk access can be triggered when windows
>explorer, my computer and application save dialog boxes are opened. It can also
>occur randomly though I think it is instigated with a disk access. When thrashing
>starts system virtually locks up until disk access stops. It seems more like a constant
>read/write sound rather then thrashing. I have run scandisk with no errors found
>+ run 3 separate virus scanners and defragged. Any help appreciated.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

try disabling the windows file indexing service start, search, preferences, then "without indexing service"

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

i hav the same disk thrashing problem wif XP Pro. even when i move my mouse or open some folder, i can hear my hard disk. I hav check using yur advice but the process using e most CPU time is the "System Idle Process". U cant disable tat,right? Anyone can help us wif this problem? i'm having 2 HDD, one is 40GB Maxtor & 60GB Western Digital. Both 7200rpm.


On Tuesday, June 4, 2002 at 7:32 pm, Greg Zeng wrote:
>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light
>still blanks wildly. How can I stop this? It really degrades my performance, not
>to mention that it's really annoying! Please help!
>
>After reading the other replies, try turning on WINDOWS TASK MANAGER (right click
>near the date-time icon, Task Bar).
>
>Click the PROCESSES TAB, click the VIEW drop-down menu, SELECT COLUMNS, CPU TIME.
> Click or double-click on the CPU TIME tab.
>
>Then you can see which application is using your CPU time the most. I found not
>just the Indexing part, but sometimes it is an anti-virus program, or a Defrag program.
> Sometimes you may have unknowingly downloaded a "fix-it" type of program that hunts
>for viruses, worms, or unnecessary windows (temp, etc) files.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Lars, I had the same problem recently, here is a summary of what I did: Note: after every step, rebooted the machine to see if that step did the trick... 1. checked for viruses - none found 2. disabled virus checker - still had problem 3. reviewed high CPU / high IO via Task Manager and Performance Monitor - nothing obvious and nothing I eliminated cured the problem (and I must say Windows really does supply some excellent monitoring tools - too bad MS does not explain them well!!!) 4. verified that the RPC services (in the CP|Admin Tools|Services) were auto start - still no cure 5. verified there was no file indexing done by checking the Search Results window option and by checking the My Computer|Hard Disk Drive|Properties|Allow Indexing ... option - still no cure 6. checked the status of the disk by My Computer|Hard Disk Drive|Properties|Tools|Error Checking|Check Disk Local Disk|Auto fix (Y), Scan for (Y) and had it run at the next boot up - cure! The Event Log (CP|Admin Tools|Events) did show Errors concerning disk blocks being invalid but I did not look at this until the very end... Good luck, hai. .


On Sunday, January 12, 2003 at 11:06 am, lars wrote:
>i hav the same disk thrashing problem wif XP Pro. even when i move my mouse or open
>some folder, i can hear my hard disk. I hav check using yur advice but the process
>using e most CPU time is the "System Idle Process". U cant disable tat,right? Anyone
>can help us wif this problem? i'm having 2 HDD, one is 40GB Maxtor & 60GB Western
>Digital. Both 7200rpm.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

We both hav exactly the same problem. Ok, i alreadi scan both my Maxtor & Western Digital for virus wif e latest Norton Antivirus definitions & no virus found & i disable Norton Antivirus scanning before but it's still like that. Then i disable INDEXING & i also go to ADMIN>SERVICES & then disable the INDEXING & set both the RPCs to automatic (why do we need to do that?)......& i discover something, eventhough i hav deleted those C & D drive folders under Indexing Services\System\Directories, i discover tat i still left one out which i'm gonna delete it away now frm Indexing Service\ which is D:\System Volume Information. Dunno if this will help cos i alreadi stop the Indexing Service. Task Manager didnt help much though....most of the programs like even KaZaaLite isnt using much resources.....Oh ya, i found this frm the ADMIN TOOLS\EVENT VIEWER\SYSTEM\.......this is the message--->>"The driver disabled the write cache on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1."......i saw this "!" sign wif the message appearing a number of times in the long list of the events. Do u noe wats this abt? Thanxs. I will let u noe if my problem can be soved later on....Thanxs for yur info.


On Monday, January 13, 2003 at 1:12 am, HAIvey wrote:
>Lars,
>
>I had the same problem recently, here is a summary of what I did:
>Note: after every step, rebooted the machine to see if that step did the trick...
>
>1. checked for viruses - none found
>2. disabled virus checker - still had problem
>3. reviewed high CPU / high IO via Task Manager and Performance Monitor - nothing
>obvious and nothing I eliminated cured the problem (and I must say Windows really
>does supply some excellent monitoring tools - too bad MS does not explain them well!!!)
>4. verified that the RPC services (in the CP|Admin Tools|Services) were auto start
>- still no cure
>5. verified there was no file indexing done by checking the Search Results window
>option and by checking the My Computer|Hard Disk Drive|Properties|Allow Indexing
>... option - still no cure
>6. checked the status of the disk by My Computer|Hard Disk Drive|Properties|Tools|Error
>Checking|Check Disk Local Disk|Auto fix (Y), Scan for (Y) and had it run at the next
>boot up - cure!
>
>The Event Log (CP|Admin Tools|Events) did show Errors concerning disk blocks being
>invalid but I did not look at this until the very end...
>
>Good luck,
>hai.
>.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Yup, it works. Both my HDDs r quieter now. After i disable Indexing & delete e folders tat r under Indexing Services in Admin Tools\Computer Management & also disable Indexing under HDD's properties. Now my system runs much faster too.


On Monday, January 13, 2003 at 1:12 am, HAIvey wrote:
>Lars,
>
>I had the same problem recently, here is a summary of what I did:
>Note: after every step, rebooted the machine to see if that step did the trick...
>
>1. checked for viruses - none found
>2. disabled virus checker - still had problem
>3. reviewed high CPU / high IO via Task Manager and Performance Monitor - nothing
>obvious and nothing I eliminated cured the problem (and I must say Windows really
>does supply some excellent monitoring tools - too bad MS does not explain them well!!!)
>4. verified that the RPC services (in the CP|Admin Tools|Services) were auto start
>- still no cure
>5. verified there was no file indexing done by checking the Search Results window
>option and by checking the My Computer|Hard Disk Drive|Properties|Allow Indexing
>... option - still no cure
>6. checked the status of the disk by My Computer|Hard Disk Drive|Properties|Tools|Error
>Checking|Check Disk Local Disk|Auto fix (Y), Scan for (Y) and had it run at the next
>boot up - cure!
>
>The Event Log (CP|Admin Tools|Events) did show Errors concerning disk blocks being
>invalid but I did not look at this until the very end...
>
>Good luck,
>hai.
>.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hardware or software problem I will never know as a few weeks after this problem started my harddrive died. Unluckily it was while backing up the drive though luckily it was one week before warranty expired. My advice is to backup as soon as the symtoms start. Gaz


On Thursday, December 19, 2002 at 8:14 am, Garth Wood wrote:

>One other tip which may possibly help:
>
>Under "Settings --> Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Services," check 
to 
>see if the two RPC (Remote Procedure Call) services are running.  If not, start 
them, 
>and set their startup type to "Automatic."  This has helped me immensely, although 
>by no means has it completely cured the problem.
>
>I've tried to find info on this problem on MS's Knowledge Base off and on for several 
>years now, without much luck.  I wonder if anyone at MS even knows it *is* a problem...
>
>Garth
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

To make a long story short. I got one laptop brand new, solded because the HDD caching drove me nuts (it was I-buddy P4-2G so I thought it was the computer). I got a second laptop Toshiba 5100 (top of the line) same shit. A specially on the laptop I try to work at night when is so quite and the HDD keeps on going krk..... krk.... krk... . I have tried all of the things prescibed there is some improvement but not like with Win2000. Sometimes it feels like I even look at the computer and it caches. Please search for a solution. (Two things that I have not tried 1. deleting folders under the indexing 2. Performing the error check/fix on the HDD). Thanks


On Monday, December 23, 2002 at 2:39 am, Gennadiy wrote:
>
> Have some anti-virus programs been installed?
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Well, frequent disk access by any OS means means frequent use of virtual memory. Primarily due to Low RAM, Low disk space (don't manually specify size of virtual memory). It can also happen if you disable cache memory (check this from BIOS). If this doesn't help check for processes that are consuming large memory (RAM) using task-manager, experiment by STARTING and STOPPING them.


On Tuesday, May 6, 2003 at 3:45 am, Chris wrote:
>To make a long story short. I got one laptop brand new, solded because the HDD caching
>drove me nuts (it was I-buddy P4-2G so I thought it was the computer). I got a second
>laptop Toshiba 5100 (top of the line) same shit. A specially on the laptop I try
>to work at night when is so quite and the HDD keeps on going krk..... krk.... krk...
>. I have tried all of the things prescibed there is some improvement but not like
>with Win2000. Sometimes it feels like I even look at the computer and it caches.
>Please search for a solution. (Two things that I have not tried 1. deleting folders
>under the indexing 2. Performing the error check/fix on the HDD). Thanks
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I am experiencing the same problems, indexing is all turned off, RPC is automatic, etc, etc. I have a feeling it may also be caused by the local computer applying local security policy. Going to investigate a bit more...

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Doesn't look as if there is a solution, except maybe 'move to another OS'. WinME has had bad press for being 'crippled' in its access to the CLI, but in my limited experience it is _much_ lighter on hard-disk accessing activity than 'disk-thrasher' W2K. I've found ME stable enough to be an improvement on W98. Or there's linux!


On Wednesday, September 4, 2002 at 7:23 am, Fernando Gonzalez wrote:
>I've followed this thread and am anxious to know whether anyone has found the solution.
>I have acquired a Highlander PIII-500 notebook with XP on it and it thrashes the
>hard disk to the point that sound and mouse movement is interrupted - very annoying
>indeed. Has anything been found other than the suggestions made here since April?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I resolved the problem on my PC by disabling the SSDP Discovery Service. My PC is a stand alone PC using XP pro. This service is only used on Networked PCs to check for Plug & Play hardware over the network. My hard drive is now silent. If I restore this service, my hard drive goes wild and the Sytem Event Viewer shows frequent starting and stopping of SSDP. I cannot force SSDP to start as it starts and stops immediately. Disabling it has no ill effect on a stand alone PC.


On Tuesday, June 10, 2003 at 6:01 pm, dale wrote:
>I am experiencing the same problems, indexing is all turned off, RPC is automatic,
>etc, etc. I have a feeling it may also be caused by the local computer applying local
>security policy. Going to investigate a bit more...

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Another thing to check is Control Panel->System->System Restore ... if it's enabled, it's auditing and recording a whole variety of changes to your system and might be responsible for some of the thrashing.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

"I have a feeling it may also be caused by the local computer applying local security 
policy. Going to investigate a bit more..."

Have you (or anyone) found anything else besides what's already been brought up in 
this thread?

I'm having the same annoyance. My hard drive isn't thrashing, but I'm getting that 
constant "krk... krk... krk..." every minute or so, it seems.

I've followed all the tips given here and still no relief.

-Indexing off on all partitions
-folders deleted under AdminTools>Computer Management>Services and Applications>Indexing 
Service
-Indexing disabled in Services
-Both RPC Services running
-Zone Alarm is running, but I've turned off all logging (it doesn't matter if I've 
got the cable modem on or off)
-Ran Error Checking on all partitions

I've got 1 Gig of RAM and a 1 Gig Paging file set up on a partition separate from 
the OS partition.

Looking at Task Manager, lsass.exe is making constant I/O Reads and Writes with csrss.exe 
more random. Everything else looks quiet. That's with my cable modem off.

This is driving me nuts! There must be some kind of setting somewhere that can cure 
this.... hopefully?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Stopping constant hard disk activity  Aug. 24. 2003
I bought 2 IBM ThinkPad R40 laptops (1.3 ghz Pentium M), 768 RAM, 40 gb disk, XP 
pro.   After loading software I noticed disk access about once per second for hours 
with any computer activity.  Seems to me that this will waste battery power and add 
many extra hours to disk wear.  Tried everything on this discussion.  Called IBM. 
 They were helpful but progress was slow – no improvement after two calls.  I found 
free utilities to help me solve the problem.  This problem is tricky and probably 
different on every computer.  I found 3 programs that continually access disk.  Zone 
Alarm Pro4, IBM Messages and Consumer Norton Anti Virus.  Zone Alarm Pro installs 
a service "True Vector Internet Monitor" in the services tab of msconfig program
this program runs a process vsmon.exe.  Stopping Zone Alarm leaves this process running. 
 To solve this problem,  Un-check "True Vector Internet Monitor" in the services 
tab.  Now when Zone alarm Pro starts the vsmon.exe process is subordinate to Zone 
Alarm and stopping Zone Alarm then stops vsmon.exe.

Turning off ibmmessages.exe in the start tab of msconfig causes some blue screens 
at shutdown. To stop the ibmmessages.exe disk access right click on its icon in the 
task bar and choose exit.  The Icon will return on next boot up.   I need to revisit 
this one.

To stop Norton Anti Virus (consumer) right click and stop program.
These problems were diagnosed with free utilities from SysInternals.com
Filemon.exe and Procexp.exe.  Filemon allows you to see what programs are driving 
the file access.
Procexp.exe shows hierarchy of processes a huge advantage over task monitor.  It 
allowed me to see why stopping Zone Alarm didn’t kill vsmon.
Diskmon.exe was also used but didn't help.    Once I stopped these three problems 
the disk access stopped for 3 minutes allowing the disk to be shutdown.  I am not 
an expert so I can’t guarantee this is a perfect fix.  Good luck.  Shame on programmers 
that create this type of code, especially when it will be run on a laptop.   Also 
corporate version of Norton Anti-Virus doesn’t constantly access the disk like the 
consumer version.

Unfortunately if the laptop is being used for internet  access you probably shouldn’t 
turn off Zone Alarm and Norton.  Now I have set the computers to sleep after 2 hours 
on AC power to save wear and tear on tear disk when they are left on all the time.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This was driving me crazy as well. I used Zone Alarm on my Notebook PC when I was running Windows ME with not problems. I installed Windows XP Pro and had the same problem with disk access. Shut down Zone Alarm, and the activity stopped.


On Wednesday, November 20, 2002 at 10:18 pm, Dale Wisely wrote:
>BINGO! This man has saved me froma nervous breakdown. Since installing XP, my HD
>had taken a beating from a sort of pulsing grind as has been described. Using this
>procedure I found that the second greatest use of CPU time was ZONE ALARM--the popular
>firewall thing. I disabled it and ...AHHHH...a silent hard drive at last.
>
>Dale
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Try unplugging your network card. Could be that its checking its connection to the net every few seconds. I run audio programs on my laptop and I have to pull out my network card while i use them, otherwise i get wacky stuttering problems from the continuous cpu blips.


On Friday, June 13, 2003 at 9:21 am, terry wrote:
>Doesn't look as if there is a solution, except maybe 'move to another OS'.
>
>WinME has had bad press for being 'crippled' in its access to the CLI, but in my
>limited experience it is _much_ lighter on hard-disk accessing activity than 'disk-thrasher'
>W2K.
>
>I've found ME stable enough to be an improvement on W98. Or there's linux!
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I've just installed the new ZoneAlarm ...

zaSetup_37_211.exe
ZoneAlarm v3.7.211

... on a win98SE machine, 
and the incessant clunk/purr/clunk has stopped. 

Thank you Eichinger for the fix, and for reminding me about the sysinternals.com 
tools.

Simon
\\\\\\\\\/\\\





On Wednesday, August 27, 2003 at 7:38 pm, Eichinger wrote:///snips///
>turn off Zone Alarm and Norton.  Now I have set the computers to sleep after 2 hours 
>on AC power to save wear and tear on tear disk when they are left on all the time.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I am having troubles with this as well.  I have read ever trick on this post to try 
and stop the constant accessing every few seconds.  I did go into Task Manager and 
found that the I/O Read of the CSRSS.EXE is constantly fluctuating in bytes every 
second.  I listened to the krkk and watched the numbers change and they are insinc 
with each other.  Seems to be a connection there.

It appears that CSRSS.EXE cannot be stopped therefore will always have this problem. 
This maybe the case for those who haven't been able to fix this.







On Thursday, April 4, 2002 at 11:13 am, Luc wrote:
>I have a question about Stop 
>Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk:

>
>
>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light 
>still blanks wildly.  How can I stop this?  It really degrades my performance, not 
>to mention that it's really annoying!  Please help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I had the problem, but it only was activated when i opened a folder that had incomplete avi files in it. There is a registry key that needs to be deleted. Do a google search on registry key and incomplete avi files. It should show up.


On Friday, October 3, 2003 at 11:49 am, YoungBuk wrote:

>I am having troubles with this as well.  I have read ever trick on this post to 
try 
>and stop the constant accessing every few seconds.  I did go into Task Manager and 
>found that the I/O Read of the CSRSS.EXE is constantly fluctuating in bytes every 
>second.  I listened to the krkk and watched the numbers change and they are insinc 
>with each other.  Seems to be a connection there.
>
>It appears that CSRSS.EXE cannot be stopped therefore will always have this problem. 
>This maybe the case for those who haven't been able to fix this.
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I first noticed this problem shortly after I reloaded my MSI DVD-CD drivers and then downloaded a new large file from the MSI site. I aslo tried shutting apps down in the system tray with no result. I notice that on closing a program there would be ashort period of peace then it started up again. It will go on all night... I cannot say that it interferes with the performance of my programs - maybe IRQ ensures that activity is not robbed from the program. I would think it's wearing on the disk read arm mechanism and stepper motor - it's more than just annoying! I watch Windows Taks Manager/Perfomance and

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

That did seem to help John, whatever you had me do. It seem to calm the csrss file but now I'm finding that the lsass.exe file too is fluctuating with each I/O read. Its actually going none stop. If its not one thing its another.


On Sunday, October 5, 2003 at 7:33 am, john wrote:
>I had the problem, but it only was activated when i opened a folder that had incomplete
>avi files in it.
>
>There is a registry key that needs to be deleted. Do a google search on registry
>key and incomplete avi files. It should show up.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

The same happens with my Compaq notebook w/ XP Home. I can be just reading a book while the computer is on, doing nothing on it, and I hear that damn noise about very 30 seconds or less....it's horrible. The performance does not seem to be affected, but I am worried about the HD health and disturbed by the stupid noise...Any news dealing with this?


On Wednesday, July 16, 2003 at 2:56 am, RickFM wrote:

>
>"I have a feeling it may also be caused by the local computer applying local security 
>policy. Going to investigate a bit more..."
>
>Have you (or anyone) found anything else besides what's already been brought up 
in 
>this thread?
>
>I'm having the same annoyance. My hard drive isn't thrashing, but I'm getting that 
>constant "krk... krk... krk..." every minute or so, it seems.
>
>I've followed all the tips given here and still no relief.
>
>-Indexing off on all partitions
>-folders deleted under AdminTools>Computer Management>Services and Applications>Indexing 
>Service
>-Indexing disabled in Services
>-Both RPC Services running
>-Zone Alarm is running, but I've turned off all logging (it doesn't matter if I've 
>got the cable modem on or off)
>-Ran Error Checking on all partitions
>
>I've got 1 Gig of RAM and a 1 Gig Paging file set up on a partition separate from 
>the OS partition.
>
>Looking at Task Manager, lsass.exe is making constant I/O Reads and Writes with 
csrss.exe 
>more random. Everything else looks quiet. That's with my cable modem off.
>
>This is driving me nuts! There must be some kind of setting somewhere that can cure 
>this.... hopefully?
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Youngbuc said: "It appears that CSRSS.EXE cannot be stopped therefore will always have this problem. " Please read my earlier post again (Eichinger). I didn't mention it specifically in my first post, but on my system, csrss.exe and lsass.exe were constantaly accessing the disk. I believe they do this because another program or process asks them to. I identified 3 offending items on my system. Use the free utilities I mentioned to find out what the source of the requests to csrss and lsass process is. When you kill the root cause things will get quiet. Good luck.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Help! I have a win98SE system with the same problem - too much access to hard disk! I tried all different ways on this forum (whatever is applicable) and nothing stops the whirring of hard disk. My hard disk is accessed almost constantly. I am not able to find the "indexing part"! Hope there is some solution to this problem! Thanks.


On Tuesday, January 6, 2004 at 5:22 pm, Eichinger wrote:
>
>
>Youngbuc said:
>"It appears that CSRSS.EXE cannot be stopped therefore will always have this problem.
>"
>
>Please read my earlier post again (Eichinger). I didn't mention it specifically
>in my first post, but on my system, csrss.exe and lsass.exe were constantaly accessing
>the disk. I believe they do this because another program or process asks them to.
> I identified 3 offending items on my system. Use the free utilities I mentioned
>to find out what the source of the requests to csrss and lsass process is. When
>you kill the root cause things will get quiet. Good luck.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Here is the answer I recieved from Seagate: The latest generation of our high-capacity drives have been programmed to perform regular off-line scans to test the drive's reliability and detect any possible malfunctions while the drive is still relatively new. These tests occur during times of system idle and are programmed to end after a certain number of power-on hours. Please remember that this is a very large drive spinning at 7200rpm. This is much faster than the common 5400rpm. In addition, the capacity increases the possibility for vibration and seek noise because of the amount of data being read so quickly. Higher performance always brings about more noise/vibration. Our drive is still the most silent for its size and performance. If you are disturbed by the amount of noise produced, you can run our SeaTools Desktop Edition to check the physical integrity of the drive: http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/ If you have any other questions, please contact us. Regards, Seagate Technical Support ===== Customer's original message ====== The hard drive constanly whirrs, even in BIOS. It whirrs for 1 minute then rests for 4. The whirring can be temporarily stopped by causing some kind of disk access (opening a file), but will resume 4 minutes later. The HD is split into a 120GB and 80GB partitions, formatted with NTFS. I doubt it is WinXP related because the HD whirrs even if I am in BIOS or if I boot from a CD. I have tried scanning the HD for errors, disabling virtual memory, closing all WinXP services, unplugging the network cable, disabling XP prefetching, disabling XP file protection, disabling WinXP dll caching. No luck. Operating system : Windows XP CPU and Speed : P4 3.06GHz ATA Controller : MS Default Controller v5.1.2600.0 Other ATA Devices : Iomega DVD-R on Secondary IDE (Seagate HD is only device on primary)

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Yes, but Seagate's reply is regarding the resync that takes place every few minutes. Drives don't have stepping motors anymore. They use a magnetic field to position the head over the track. The head alignment changes as the drive's temperature changes, and so every few minutes, the drive's internal firmware does a bunch of seeks to many tracks on the drive, and then it adjusts its internal tables that indicate how much voltage to apply to get to specific tracks. This sync process is performed every time a drive starts up, you'll hear it once for every drive in your system when you power up. These seeks sound kind of like a "whirring" noise. But the resyncing process does not turn on the access light, and won't show up on any software monitor. It's a firmware process. Some drives allow it to be turned off, but by turning it off, the drive's tables will often be wrong, so the firmware will have to do at least two seeks to satisfy a transfer request. As far as wear on the drive, the only moving parts that are supposed to be making a physical contact inside the drive is the bearing on the arm. I've never heard of one of them wearing out. Even on twenty year old drives. The track's home address info goes first. Or a head crashes.


On Saturday, April 10, 2004 at 3:16 pm, Marfan wrote:
>Here is the answer I recieved from Seagate:
>
> The latest generation of our high-capacity drives have been programmed to perform
>regular off-line scans to test the drive's reliability and detect any possible malfunctions
>while the drive is still relatively new. These
> tests occur during times of system idle and are programmed to end after a certain
>number of power-on hours.
>
> Please remember that this is a very large drive spinning at 7200rpm. This is much
>faster than the common 5400rpm. In addition, the capacity
> increases the possibility for vibration and seek noise because of the amount of
>data being read so quickly. Higher performance always brings about more noise/vibration.
> Our drive is still the most silent for its
> size and performance.
>
> If you are disturbed by the amount of noise produced, you can run our SeaTools Desktop
>Edition to check the physical integrity of the drive:
> http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/
> If you have any other questions, please contact us.
> Regards,
> Seagate Technical Support
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I have exactly the same laptop configuration and had the same problem this morning, i.e. light disk access every second or so... The only I/O read activity was also from csrss.exe and lsass.exe. Exiting the IBM message center caused a very long disk read (quite weird) and then the constant disk accesses magically stopped. Eichenger is probably right that this disk access problem can be caused by different programs on different computers... ----------------------------- If you want to get rid of the IBM Message Center always starting at boot time, you can delete its HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registry key (using regedit) (I suggest that you write down its key entry somewhere so that you can just recreate it if you want it back or you get some problems with the IBM installation later because of that...). More info about how to get rid of startup programs in different levels of cleanliness can be found at: http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm


On Wednesday, August 27, 2003 at 7:38 pm, Eichinger wrote:
>
>Stopping constant hard disk activity Aug. 24. 2003
>I bought 2 IBM ThinkPad R40 laptops (1.3 ghz Pentium M), 768 RAM, 40 gb disk, XP
>pro. After loading software I noticed disk access about once per second for hours
>with any computer activity. Seems to me that this will waste battery power and add
>many extra hours to disk wear. Tried everything on this discussion. Called IBM.
> They were helpful but progress was slow – no improvement after two calls. I found
>free utilities to help me solve the problem. This problem is tricky and probably
>different on every computer. I found 3 programs that continually access disk. Zone
>Alarm Pro4, IBM Messages and Consumer Norton Anti Virus. Zone Alarm Pro installs
>a service "True Vector Internet Monitor" in the services tab of msconfig program
>this program runs a process vsmon.exe. Stopping Zone Alarm leaves this process running.
> To solve this problem, Un-check "True Vector Internet Monitor" in the services
>tab. Now when Zone alarm Pro starts the vsmon.exe process is subordinate to Zone
>Alarm and stopping Zone Alarm then stops vsmon.exe.
>
>Turning off ibmmessages.exe in the start tab of msconfig causes some blue screens
>at shutdown. To stop the ibmmessages.exe disk access right click on its icon in the
>task bar and choose exit. The Icon will return on next boot up. I need to revisit
>this one.
>
>To stop Norton Anti Virus (consumer) right click and stop program.
>These problems were diagnosed with free utilities from SysInternals.com
>Filemon.exe and Procexp.exe. Filemon allows you to see what programs are driving
>the file access.
>Procexp.exe shows hierarchy of processes a huge advantage over task monitor. It
>allowed me to see why stopping Zone Alarm didn’t kill vsmon.
>Diskmon.exe was also used but didn't help. Once I stopped these three problems
>the disk access stopped for 3 minutes allowing the disk to be shutdown. I am not
>an expert so I can’t guarantee this is a perfect fix. Good luck. Shame on programmers
>that create this type of code, especially when it will be run on a laptop. Also
>corporate version of Norton Anti-Virus doesn’t constantly access the disk like the
>consumer version.
>
>Unfortunately if the laptop is being used for internet access you probably shouldn’t
>turn off Zone Alarm and Norton. Now I have set the computers to sleep after 2 hours
>on AC power to save wear and tear on tear disk when they are left on all the time.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Not sure if you guys have found a slution to your disk thrashing issues. But here is what I would recommend: 1. go to www.sysinternals.com and download their diskmon utility (it is free!). it lets you monitor what is going on your disk at any point. 2. As soon as the thrashing starts press ctrl+E and you can create a log as to what is causing the problems. Then perhaps you can work past it. The sysinternals site is a choc full of goodies like processmonitor, cpu monitor..so for the ultrageeks among you can see what is the root cause of the problem. It is a must have utility if you are windows user.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

If zonealarm is disabled - what is being used for a firewall? (Or are you now using a different firewall sw - what are your recommendations?)


On Wednesday, November 20, 2002 at 10:18 pm, Dale Wisely wrote:
>BINGO! This man has saved me froma nervous breakdown. Since installing XP, my HD
>had taken a beating from a sort of pulsing grind as has been described. Using this
>procedure I found that the second greatest use of CPU time was ZONE ALARM--the popular
>firewall thing. I disabled it and ...AHHHH...a silent hard drive at last. If you diabled zone alarm firewall - what is being used as your firewall? (What are your recommendations?)
>
>Dale
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I also used www.sysinternals.com to download filemon.exe which led me to find the cause of my problem. My H-D would be taken over for 20-25 seconds several times daily and windows task manager would not show anything running that was causing it. Once I downloaded filemon.exe it showed exactly what the cause was and even shows the exact time of the occurrence. Seems that Drive Image 7.x keeps it's agent running in the backround, (V2i), scanning your H-D several times a day, even though the backup program is set to run only once a day. I now can go into "Services" and turn off the V2i agent during the day so this does not happen any more.


On Monday, July 19, 2004 at 6:54 am, Joe wrote:
>Not sure if you guys have found a slution to your disk thrashing issues. But here
>is what I would recommend:
>
>1. go to www.sysinternals.com and download their diskmon utility (it is free!). it
>lets you monitor what is going on your disk at any point.
>
>2. As soon as the thrashing starts press ctrl+E and you can create a log as to what
>is causing the problems. Then perhaps you can work past it.
>
>The sysinternals site is a choc full of goodies like processmonitor, cpu monitor..so
>for the ultrageeks among you can see what is the root cause of the problem. It is
>a must have utility if you are windows user.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

EMERGENCY BOOT DISK FREEWARE

You HAVE to have a pagefile somewhere. I had a 300Mb pagefile on drive C: and a 1000Mb 
pagefile on drive E:

How much RAM do you have? XP will use up to 4 x 1024Mb modules, depending on the 
motherboard design, and really needs 1024Mb as a minimum, although it will manage 
with 512Mb.


Mac

WINDOWS SUPPORT  RAM

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

EMERGENCY BOOT DISK FREEWARE

The advice on that page doesn't apply to XP. How many drive partitions do you have?
Mac

WINDOWS SUPPORT  RAM

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Absolutely agree. I tried everything that everyone had posted on this thread (many thanks to all) to no effect. Filemon (you did mean filemon, didn't you?) soon pointed the finger at Norton Internet Security, so I bit the bullet and uninstalled it: I was hacked off with them anyway because suddenly they don't support 2003, after I'd extended my subscription. I switched to the Windows Firewall and installed the avast! Virus Scanner. Bliss. Yes, my hard drive still seems overactive but if I leave the machine for a few seconds, the disk shuts down and stays shut down until I do something else. Again thanks to all for posting here. It was the only source of information I could find on the Web. And no thanks to Microsoft, Sony and Symantec, who all merely passed the buck.


On Monday, July 19, 2004 at 6:54 am, Joe wrote:
>Not sure if you guys have found a slution to your disk thrashing issues. But here
>is what I would recommend:
>
>1. go to www.sysinternals.com and download their diskmon utility (it is free!). it
>lets you monitor what is going on your disk at any point.
>
>2. As soon as the thrashing starts press ctrl+E and you can create a log as to what
>is causing the problems. Then perhaps you can work past it.
>
>The sysinternals site is a choc full of goodies like processmonitor, cpu monitor..so
>for the ultrageeks among you can see what is the root cause of the problem. It is
>a must have utility if you are windows user.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thanks a lot. I have a completely different laptop (Compaq Presario 700) but was experiencing the same problem. Brief disk activity every second or so can be quite distracting, when you're trying to focus on something else and just want the laptop the stay switched on and silent... This model's hard-disk is very noisy. With me, the cause was the free version of ZoneAlarm. Disabling the True Vector service and shutting down ZoneAlarm, as you suggested, solved the problem. Guess I'll have to do with the Windows (half of a) firewall... T.


On Wednesday, August 27, 2003 at 7:38 pm, Eichinger wrote:
>
>Stopping constant hard disk activity Aug. 24. 2003
>I bought 2 IBM ThinkPad R40 laptops (1.3 ghz Pentium M), 768 RAM, 40 gb disk, XP
>pro. After loading software I noticed disk access about once per second for hours
>with any computer activity. Seems to me that this will waste battery power and add
>many extra hours to disk wear. Tried everything on this discussion. Called IBM.
> They were helpful but progress was slow – no improvement after two calls. I found
>free utilities to help me solve the problem. This problem is tricky and probably
>different on every computer. I found 3 programs that continually access disk. Zone
>Alarm Pro4, IBM Messages and Consumer Norton Anti Virus. Zone Alarm Pro installs
>a service "True Vector Internet Monitor" in the services tab of msconfig program
>this program runs a process vsmon.exe. Stopping Zone Alarm leaves this process running.
> To solve this problem, Un-check "True Vector Internet Monitor" in the services
>tab. Now when Zone alarm Pro starts the vsmon.exe process is subordinate to Zone
>Alarm and stopping Zone Alarm then stops vsmon.exe.
>
>Turning off ibmmessages.exe in the start tab of msconfig causes some blue screens
>at shutdown. To stop the ibmmessages.exe disk access right click on its icon in the
>task bar and choose exit. The Icon will return on next boot up. I need to revisit
>this one.
>
>To stop Norton Anti Virus (consumer) right click and stop program.
>These problems were diagnosed with free utilities from SysInternals.com
>Filemon.exe and Procexp.exe. Filemon allows you to see what programs are driving
>the file access.
>Procexp.exe shows hierarchy of processes a huge advantage over task monitor. It
>allowed me to see why stopping Zone Alarm didn’t kill vsmon.
>Diskmon.exe was also used but didn't help. Once I stopped these three problems
>the disk access stopped for 3 minutes allowing the disk to be shutdown. I am not
>an expert so I can’t guarantee this is a perfect fix. Good luck. Shame on programmers
>that create this type of code, especially when it will be run on a laptop. Also
>corporate version of Norton Anti-Virus doesn’t constantly access the disk like the
>consumer version.
>
>Unfortunately if the laptop is being used for internet access you probably shouldn’t
>turn off Zone Alarm and Norton. Now I have set the computers to sleep after 2 hours
>on AC power to save wear and tear on tear disk when they are left on all the time.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This one really worked for me.

How To Move the Paging File in Windows XP
Article ID : 307886 
Last Review : July 14, 2004 
Revision : 1.0 
This article was previously published under Q307886

:)http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307886








On Sunday, September 8, 2002 at 8:26 pm, John wrote:

>I stopped all processes except csrss.exe (windows will reboot if this is topped), 

>and yet I still get the blinks.  When I removed my cd-rom drives, it stopped.  Seems 

>like a low level driver issue, not an application.  This one is killing my disk 
performance 

>on benchmarks, considering re-installing.

>

>

 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

If you want a replacement for ZoneAlarm, try Sygate Personal Firewall. Like ZA, it has a free version that can be used indefinitely. However, when I had logging turned on, after a while I would get disk accesses which hung the computer for a second or two. With logging turned off it's fine - perhaps ZoneAlarm has a similar logging option somewhere?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I tried many of the actions recommended on this thread, all to no avail. I'm running XP Home and have two external drives (Seagate 400GB and a Zip 250). Both were getting accessed every couple of seconds. I wouldn't describe it as "thrashing," rather constant access such that the drive is constantly spinning, even when the PC is left idle for hours. Solution for me: log off all others users on my PC. I have a biometric fingerprint reader that my family uses to quickly toggle between different users' desktops. By in a large a nice feature of XP. Took me a while to figure it out, but as soon as I log everyone else off but me, the constant disk access (on both drives) stops.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I'm thoroughly impressed with all the expertise and help that people have so freely given, thank you. I have the same problem as everyone else has been describing and have tried virtually everything that people have suggested, insofar as it applies to my Averatec with Windows XP. What is most curious and disconcerting, however, is that, after downloading filemon, often nothing would register when my disk was going ('thrashing', krk krk etc). Any hints as to why nothing is registering even though something is clearly accessing my harddrive? Thanks.


On Saturday, June 11, 2005 at 9:58 am, Matt Deniston wrote:
>I tried many of the actions recommended on this thread, all to no avail. I'm running
>XP Home and have two external drives (Seagate 400GB and a Zip 250). Both were getting
>accessed every couple of seconds. I wouldn't describe it as "thrashing," rather constant
>access such that the drive is constantly spinning, even when the PC is left idle
>for hours.
>
>Solution for me: log off all others users on my PC. I have a biometric fingerprint
>reader that my family uses to quickly toggle between different users' desktops. By
>in a large a nice feature of XP. Took me a while to figure it out, but as soon as
>I log everyone else off but me, the constant disk access (on both drives) stops.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Did you check Task Manager for page file usage? That type of access is not (I think) recorded by FileMon.

Malware Removal

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Check out this URL:

http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18953

-
Posted - Nov 04 2004 :  04:38:04 AM         
If you install the TweakUI power toy from Microsoft, there is a setting under the 
"General Setting" called Optimize Hard Disk when idle".
This is enabled on my machine and I've not 'tweaked' it yet so this may well be the 
default. The full description for this is from within the TweakUI exe is: -
The "Optimize hard disk when idle" check-box allows Windows to rearrange files on 
the hard disk when the computer is not in use to improve performance
I would say if this is checked then there's your reason...whenever your machine goes 
'idle', Windows starts to defrag the disk for you.
HTH
Simon 
- 
I tried this (without reboothing yet) but csrss.exe is still munching away.  Maybe 
it's working for the NSA and Pres Bustcher?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

The Filemon program was a HUGE saver. Thanks! Used it to figure out that my company had installed 'intrusion detection' called Blackice ...and that was munching everything. I stopped the program and voila....peace and quiet! Thanks to all on this thread!!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Here is one that I haven't heard yet. My HDD was going "clack, clack, clack" every 5 or 10 seconds. It was ActiveSync. Easy to figure out cause it started right after installation, and goes completly silent when I shut it down. It really annoys me that it causes a perfectly silent laptop at rest (Compaq R4025) to make incessent noise. I guess I can live with starting the program each time i want to sync my AximX50V (sorry if this sounds a little like another post but i think i accidentaly posted halfway into writing this by being a bit sloppy and hitting tab and enter by mistake)


On Monday, February 6, 2006 at 12:33 pm, Charlie wrote:
>The Filemon program was a HUGE saver. Thanks! Used it to figure out that my company
>had installed 'intrusion detection' called Blackice ...and that was munching everything.
> I stopped the program and voila....peace and quiet!
>
>Thanks to all on this thread!!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This thread contains an impressive number of contributions, but it's hard to find what one needs. Here's a list with links to all tips and tricks so far:

• turn off the indexing function ^ ^
• start, search, preferences, then "without indexing service" ^
• Page file ^
• right click My computer - properties click advanced tab click settings button under performance click advanced tab click change button under virtual memory click 'no paging file' radio button, click set button restart done ^
• Move the Paging File in Windows XP ^
• log off all others users on my PC (biometric fingerprint reader) ^
• nothing in FileMon ^ -- check Task Manager for page file usage ^
• TweakUI power toy ^
• BlackICE^
• ActiveSync ^
• unplugging your network card ^
• DVD-CD ^
• Task Manager ^^
• Zone Alarm ^^
• Patch ^
• Zone Alarm Pro4, IBM Messages and Consumer Norton Anti Virus ^ ^
• Overview of tips ^
• Firmware ^
• RPC services (in the CP|Admin Tools|Services) were auto start ^ ^
• checked the status of the disk by My Computer|Hard Disk Drive|Properties|Tools|Error Checking|Check Disk Local Disk|Auto fix (Y), Scan for (Y) and had it run at the next boot up - cure! ^
• backup as soon as the symptoms start. ^
• 1. deleting folders under the indexing 2. Performing the error check/fix on the HDD ^
• cache memory (check this from BIOS) ^
• disabling the SSDP Discovery Service (stand alone PC) ^
• Control Panel->System->System Restore ^
• CSRSS.EXE ^
• incomplete avi files ^
• lsass.exe ^

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

My situation seems to fit closest to the posts (e.g. Ted's, Andy's) who identified the problem with FileMon. However, on my box, FileMon only seems to report the following three processes:

• CcmExec.exe (80%), always accessing PolicyEvaluator.log. - is this OK?
• svchost.exe (15%), accessing various paths
• System (5%), mostly accessing C:\$LogFile

Task Manager lists:

• Idle (98%)
• taskmgr(1%)
• filemon (1%)
• explorer (occasionally 1%)
• (rest 0%)

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

To avoid misunderstandings: I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with CcmExec.exe per se; I'm aware that it is important for the stable and secure running of my computer.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This is the best and the best solution for the problem .Some say ibmmessages.exe and some say indexing services .I am not saying that they are wrong .But this approach will let you find the root cause of the problem rather that guess work. Just find out which process is faulting most currently and if its not critical start killing it.Repeat the same for others .In my case it was a process called TSVNCache.exe and another one procexp.exe .The probs caused by the first were a major concern .Thanks for this help and i would give this approach a 10 of 10 . A very decent approch to solve the problem . Bingo


On Tuesday, June 4, 2002 at 7:32 pm, Greg Zeng wrote:
>>I have XP Pro and I have done the steps on this page, however the hard drive light
>>still blanks wildly. How can I stop this? It really degrades my performance, not
>>to mention that it's really annoying! Please help!
>
>After reading the other replies, try turning on WINDOWS TASK MANAGER (right click
>near the date-time icon, Task Bar).
>
>Click the PROCESSES TAB, click the VIEW drop-down menu, SELECT COLUMNS, CPU TIME.
> Click or double-click on the CPU TIME tab.
>
>Then you can see which application is using your CPU time the most. I found not
>just the Indexing part, but sometimes it is an anti-virus program, or a Defrag program.
> Sometimes you may have unknowingly downloaded a "fix-it" type of program that hunts
>for viruses, worms, or unnecessary windows (temp, etc) files.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I know this is an old thread, but I am only posting this for those who may later 
have this problem also. My solution was to download a firmware update for my DVD 
RW, and problem was solved. 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

There is a fast and easy way to stop disk thrashing.  Here's what I do:

First, kill all the programs you can after a clean reboot, meaning specifically all 
the crap in the task bar.  Then go to control panel/ system/ advanced/performance 
and turn off your virtual memory.  Reboot.

1.  Delete any old crap on your drive you can get rid of.  In the run box type %temp% 
whichwill bring you to your temp directory.  Delete everything there.  This will 
fix a lot of other problems too.
  
2.  From mycomputer select the disk drive, right click and go to properties.  Turn 
indexing off here.  Also turn off compression if you can.  Disks are cheap.  When 
you hit apply it will set atributes for all you files.  Go have a cup of coffee.

3.  Now defragment your drive even if windows does not recommend it.

4.  Go back to the virtual memory control (above) and set your virtual memory to 
a value consistant with your work habits and needs.  In systems running XP with 2 
GB of memory you probably can leave it off, worst case is 2X your memory size.

Good rule of thumb - the more microsoft stuff you use the more virtually memory you 
will need and the worse the performance will be.  I'm currently fixing my wifes machine, 
80 GB HD, 512 MB of ram.  With no virtual memory I'm running 5 applications without 
any problem and my disk has spun down.  It was so loud you couldn't watch TV!

To really understand this and many other problems on your computer, get a book on 
Fedora, download it, and install it on some older hardware.  Then you'll realize 
how bad windows is as an operating system.  Linux just smokes it, plain and simple 
and its free.  My windows machine is a 3 GHZ 2 GB box that does pretty well.  My 
linux machine is my old 1.2 GHz with 512 MB.  I do everything on the 1.2 GHz box 
becuase its so much faster, never hangs, never crashes, and more applications, and 
its all free.
/Len Umina

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I noticed the same problem on my notebook and on another notebook of my family both 
running XP prof. In our cases lsass.exe did 3 writes and 3 reads about every second 
accompanied by some I/O activities found for csrss.exe and the service "DCOM-Server 
process launcher" (svchost -k DcomLaunch). I will never understand how an operating 
sold for battery operated computers must be programmed like this.

This unwanted activity could be stopped by deactivating the service called "terminal 
services". Without this service you cannot have multiple sessions on your PC, cannot 
attach to remote sessions and cannot run a terminal server on your PC. Normally these 
restrictions are ok for the home office or family user. At least for my understanding.

After this modification our notebooks are not completely I/O free, but the nerve-racking 
flashing of the harddisk lamp has stopped. What a relief.

I miss some elegance in this fix, as multiple sessions are still offered in the logout 
dialog, but behave as no-ops. Does somebody know a better solution?






On Sunday, May 30, 2004 at 7:08 am, Simon Lacoste-Julien wrote:

>I have exactly the same laptop configuration and had the same problem this morning, 

>i.e. light disk access every second or so... The only I/O read activity was also 

>from csrss.exe and lsass.exe. Exiting the IBM message center caused a very long 
disk 

>read (quite weird) and then the constant disk accesses magically stopped.  Eichenger 

>is probably right that this disk access problem can be caused by different programs 

>on different computers...

>

>-----------------------------

>

>If you want to get rid of the IBM Message Center always starting at boot time, you 

>can delete its HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registry key (using 

>regedit) (I suggest that you write down its key entry somewhere so that you can 
just 

>recreate it if you want it back or you get some problems with the IBM installation 

>later because of that...). More info about how to get rid of startup programs in 

>different levels of cleanliness can be found at:

>http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm
 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

• Search this forum
• Start a new thread on a different subject

• Report abuse of the forum