Windows XP Disk Activity

[zimmie6576]

I remember seeing something like this posted on a different forum (I don't think it was on this site), but I can't remember seeing a good answer, so I'll post here. I've had XP for about a month or so, and I've noticed that when I leave my (Desktop)computer idle, the hard drive will start accessing, alot. Actually, it has always done this, but I only recently started paying attention. If I happen to put up a screensaver (I know they're not needed, but some are nice to look at), this disk activity will slow it down to a crawl. I was using the one from Nvidia's website, with the bouncing golden Nvidia logo when I got my new GeForce 4, and the disk activity that started when it was running made it look like it was barely moving at all, slower than a slideshow.

I hope someone has a good solution to this, such as it is some XP "feature" (like the game monitor refresh problem), that can be disabled (unlike the game monitor refresh problem). Thank you.

 

[Derango]

I believe this has to do with XP auto defraging your hard drive during idle time. I could be wrong though. If I'm right )) then I haven't heard of a way to disable this feature.

 

[x1xBugsBunnyx1x]

We presently have 3 puters running XP corp, 2 p3 & 1 p4 they all have ata100 discs of decent size. I have yet to notice any HD activity while idle, i do have most everything shutdown using msconfig, no sys restore. When i check the task manager the cpu usage is always around 99% free @ idle
We just decommisioned an athalon 533w3D now & 256mbs ram, this system always seemed to run a minimum of 5-6% cpu usage with XP corp which puzzled me to this day, i couldnt get it lower using msconfig @ idle, checked programs in task manager against the other puters and nothing different between the intel & the amd Running @idle.
Sorry didnt help ya much.
Would of stayed with Win2k but it has a problem (it dont like its IDE position being moved) no boot. WinXP can go from IDE on the board to a promise tech card with no problems..

 

[JellyBaby]

It could be dfrgfat.exe. I caught this little ah heck running one time and managed to check the task manager and ID it before it self-terminated.

 

[Finite]

Actually I think that its the Indexing service which is causing this harddrive activity. My system does this same thing and as soon as I wake the monitor it stops and I cannot verrify this for sure. I havn't tried disabling this service because I am scared that it would cause a problem since it has always been running and indexing files. If someone can tell me for sure that disabling this service would not cause problems then I will try and and let you know (or you can try it and let me know).

 

[Tol]

I always disable the indexing service...I've never had a problem.

 

[JellyBaby]

Indexing is optional. Dump it for sure if you rarely search your hard drives for files and/or if you have small hard drives.

 

[Dion Unroe]

I have the same problem with my machine, and I have everything turned off via msconfig, I also have the indexing service, restore service turned off also! I checked the task manager and it shows 100% resources free...

But even with 100% free resources I get the lag when the HD access, while I'm in UT! (drives me nuts)

I also noticed the same thing in win2000 in an older system! Thanks Dion