Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)
I am having a continuing and most irritating problem with my Win XP SP2
system ... the problem also happened before SP2 was installed. Frequently
[i.e. 2-3 times an hour when I am using the system] and even occasionally
when the machine is in StandBy [!] the disk starts cranking away full bore
[i.e. the disk light is on almost constantly and it sounds really REALLY
busy] for 2-3 minutes ... then it seems to start slowing down and eventually
becomes quiet. I don't have a clue what is going on. When I bring up
Windows Task Manager and look at the Processes tab I see a couple of entries
whose I/O counts are changing a little bit [maybe 3-4 reads and/or writes a
second] but nothing shows the huge counts that I think are going on based on
the noise I hear from the drive. When it is in this frantic disk mode just
about anything else that I might be trying to do comes to a standstill
....eg. reading mail or coming back to life after being in StandBy ... the
machine is essentially frozen. The Task Manager is showing several
instances of svchost (with username Network Service and System) and lsass
and csrss ... they sometimes have low I/O counts going on when this happens
but I don't think they are the culprits [although I am at a loss to find out
what in Sam Hill these processes really do]. I am diligent about running
virus and spyware scans ... they show nothing wrong. If this is an artifact
of Windows XP then I would dearly love to know what in the world it is doing
when the system enters this state. I am running a system with 384MB ... the
30GB disk is quite full but this is not the problem because this was
happening back when the disk was much less populated than it is now. While
I cannot base it on anything I do not think that this is being caused by
some outside agent (eg. a virus) ... my suspicion is that Windows is doing
SOMETHING to cause this but I sure wish they would tell me what that
something is. It's driving me batty.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I am having a continuing and most irritating problem with my Win XP SP2
system ... the problem also happened before SP2 was installed. Frequently
[i.e. 2-3 times an hour when I am using the system] and even occasionally
when the machine is in StandBy [!] the disk starts cranking away full bore
[i.e. the disk light is on almost constantly and it sounds really REALLY
busy] for 2-3 minutes ... then it seems to start slowing down and eventually
becomes quiet. I don't have a clue what is going on. When I bring up
Windows Task Manager and look at the Processes tab I see a couple of entries
whose I/O counts are changing a little bit [maybe 3-4 reads and/or writes a
second] but nothing shows the huge counts that I think are going on based on
the noise I hear from the drive. When it is in this frantic disk mode just
about anything else that I might be trying to do comes to a standstill
....eg. reading mail or coming back to life after being in StandBy ... the
machine is essentially frozen. The Task Manager is showing several
instances of svchost (with username Network Service and System) and lsass
and csrss ... they sometimes have low I/O counts going on when this happens
but I don't think they are the culprits [although I am at a loss to find out
what in Sam Hill these processes really do]. I am diligent about running
virus and spyware scans ... they show nothing wrong. If this is an artifact
of Windows XP then I would dearly love to know what in the world it is doing
when the system enters this state. I am running a system with 384MB ... the
30GB disk is quite full but this is not the problem because this was
happening back when the disk was much less populated than it is now. While
I cannot base it on anything I do not think that this is being caused by
some outside agent (eg. a virus) ... my suspicion is that Windows is doing
SOMETHING to cause this but I sure wish they would tell me what that
something is. It's driving me batty.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.