WinXP -- Disk Activity when in power-save mode?

[wumpuskiller]

Hi,
My son's new computer runs on WinXP (home edition). I've never used WinXP (still use Win98SE on my other comps). It seems that when he leaves his computer idle, the screen saver kicks in first, then it goes into 'sleep' mode (monitor goes off), but I've noticed that there is a LOT of disk activity going on even though the system is idle (the disk i/o light on the front panel flickers like made).

He has run a virus scan on the computer and it comes up with nothing.

Can anyone point me to any options within WinXP that could cause this behavior or otherwise explain what might be happening? I've checked all the basic power-saving/screen saving options I'm familiar with, but don't see anything that might be causing this.

TIA,
wumpus....

 

[piasabird]

It is possible to turn off this power saving function in WIN XP. I dont recall how it is done. Look for some websites on winxp services.

 

[bsobel]

Can anyone point me to any options within WinXP that could cause this behavior or otherwise explain what might be happening? I've checked all the basic power-saving/screen saving options I'm familiar with, but don't see anything that might be causing this.

There are some background processes that do things to maintain the system that are run while idle. One relays file images (program and dll's) to optimize their load time. This can cause alot of disk activity (it's basically using the defrag engine), but once it gets thru a pass it shouldn't be as 'noisy' next time it's invoked. Does the activity remain constant or does it run for a bit and then slow?

Bill

 

[bacillus]

IMO you should disable the indexing service!

 

[EeyoreX]

I agree with bsobel and think that it is likely Windows XP optimizing itself. Generally Windows XP reorganizes files it uses to boot up in order to increase speed. Often it also does some defragmenting and other optimizations when the computer is idle so that performance is not affected when you are using your PC. This activity should lessen over time, but generally, XP does a litle of this a lot of the idle time and it is normal. If you are worried about a virus or trojan horse, or something using your bandwidth (assuming you have an always on connection) in addition to the AV software, install a software firewall, like ZoneAlarm to make sure no unauthorized transmissions are being sent from your PC.

\Dan

 

[Staver]

There are also disk performance statistics counters going on as well if you don't disable them.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Staver
There are also disk performance statistics counters going on as well if you don't disable them.

These are not enabled by default. Further the disk performacne counters don't generate disk activity, they log it. So I don't see how this is relevant (?)
Bill

 

[wumpuskiller]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I've been away for the past couple of days and haven't been able to pursue this.

I will definately turn off the indexing service.

But what is really strange is that both of my sons have the exact same computer.....one of them have this disk activity while idle, the other does not.

BTW....I've not seen any signs of trojan activity.....no outbound network activity at all.