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Do all laptop users find that the hard drive access light flashes 30 to 40
times a minute at all times except for when it gets busy and flashes twice
that much or more?
--
JimL
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[Quoted Text] > Do all laptop users find that the hard drive access light flashes 30
> to 40 times a minute at all times except for when it gets busy and
> flashes twice that much or more?
No, but remember, there are a lot of things going on in the background
that could use the hard drive. File Indexing, antivirus checking and
many things you may not be aware that your own software is doing.
There isn't a whole lot of things that would cause that which would be
problematic if you aren't already having problems. One would be spyware
and the other a virus/worm/trojan whatever.
Are you having any specific problems you need assistance with?
If not, and it's just the flashing of the drive LED that's bothering
you, there are ways to see what it's doing and what is doing the disk
accessing. Therefore, an explanation of what you have and what you want
is likely in order, whether you're just looking to be educated or trying
to address a problem or find out whether it IS a problem.
Be sure to describe your system as best you can, includin gthings
like how much RAM you have and the free space on your disk drive or
drives. It will let people get a better handle on your situation.
HTH
Twayne
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"Twayne" <nobody[ at ]devnull.spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:uh7FFfmWJHA.5108[ at ]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
[Quoted Text] >
>> Do all laptop users find that the hard drive access light flashes 30
>> to 40 times a minute at all times except for when it gets busy and
>> flashes twice that much or more?
>
> No, but remember, there are a lot of things going on in the background
> that could use the hard drive. File Indexing, antivirus checking and many
> things you may not be aware that your own software is doing.
>
> There isn't a whole lot of things that would cause that which would be
> problematic if you aren't already having problems. One would be spyware
> and the other a virus/worm/trojan whatever.
>
> Are you having any specific problems you need assistance with?
>
> If not, and it's just the flashing of the drive LED that's bothering you,
> there are ways to see what it's doing and what is doing the disk
> accessing. Therefore, an explanation of what you have and what you want
> is likely in order, whether you're just looking to be educated or trying
> to address a problem or find out whether it IS a problem.
> Be sure to describe your system as best you can, includin gthings like
> how much RAM you have and the free space on your disk drive or drives. It
> will let people get a better handle on your situation.
>
> HTH
>
> Twayne
>
Thanks for the reply. I've asked about this before and was assured that my
machine was loaded with malware, which I knew not to be the case having
stayed on top of that using several recommended anti-junk programs on a
daily basis (and being assured that was stupid).
I have a Thinkpad T42, Centrino 1.7ghz, 1gb mem, 10 gb free disk space, XP
Pro SP3. SP 3 is recent and didn't change the constant hard drive accessing
at all. I used to have the laptop networked to the desktop via crossover
cable, but that died suddenly, apparently of a massive heart attack. I
disconnected the cable.
I'll note here that I do internet on dial-up and am OFFLINE as often and
quickly as possible.
This constant hard drive access has been an irritant since the first day I
installed XP. I didn't understand why a battery based machine should access
the disk constantly while my desktop almost never accessed the disk except
for actual times of known data transfer, etc.
(I also considered XP's constant, day-and-night demands to get on the
internet to be a major irritant as well, although that was every few minutes
instead of many times a minute.)
I've had AVG 8 full until recently and dropped that for AVG 8 Free since
Full was always asking to get on the internet even though I had it set for
once a day.
I also have AdAware, SpyWare Detector, SpyHunter, Registry Mechanic,
Registry booster2 and RootKit Revealer available, but do not autostart ANY
anti-malware software except for my ZoneAlarm Firewall - if that counts. I
run various of these frequently. About 6 months ago I had a rather lengthy
bout with, primarily, Zlob - finally rooting it out using manual technics
from MajorGeek's website. SpyHunter found Zlob and a couple others the
other day and has declared it clean since. (That took a couple days.) AVG
has NEVER spotted Zlob. It SEEMS to help avoid crap if I have SpyHunter
running in the background while on the internet (dialup). That may be mere
coincidence.
I voiced my unhappiness with SpyWare Detector earlier. Not only did it seem
seem to be more trouble than it was worth, it kept reporting the presence
and removal of a trojan I forget the name of - then reporting it present and
removed AGAIN upon rerunning it either immediately or after a system
restart. (As stated - offline.)
It has occurred to me that perhaps the machine could be attempting to locate
the drives on the decktop which I have never removed from the My Computer
list. But the constant flashing started long before I even HAD any
networking at all. As a related (or unrelated) detail (as the case may be)
I am fully credentialed as a world class networking dummy, holding what was,
at least at one time, top world honors in not getting it.
Thanks
JimL
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