Hard Drive always busy

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Guest

A couple weeks back I noticed MS Word working very slowly. Switching back to
MS Word from other applications took a long time for the hourglass to
disappear, like 10 - 20 seconds. Having two documents open at the same time
crashed the program.

Then my computer started running very slowly. Some times it runs fine, but
most of the time the programs run very slowly. The latest is the hard drive
sounds like it's processing something, even when I'm not doing anything on
the computer. It will go for a long time (30 seconds easily) but then as
soon as I move the mouse, the sound stops.

It's a Dell Dimension 8250 with a 2.4 gig processor and half a gig of RAM so
it should be pretty quick. I defragged, ran AdAware and Spy Bot, emptied my
IE cache, recently updated my Norton protection and it says I'm virus-free,
but no improvement. So now I don't really know what else to do. Any
suggestions for those of us who are not computer whizes?

thanks,
jvs
 
One or more of the running applications may be reading / writing something
to the hard drive excessively. These links help you determine the process
that's causing the delay. Don't forget that Symantec products takes enormous
system resources, and adds too many registry keys, and drivers.

Using the Task Manager:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-GB;842628

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316434

"FileMon monitors and displays file system activity on a system in
real-time. Its advanced capabilities make it a powerful tool for exploring
the way Windows works, seeing how applications use the files and DLLs, or
tracking down problems in system or application file configurations."
Sysinternals Freeware - Filemon:
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html

--
Ramesh, Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User

Windows XP Troubleshooting
http://www.winhelponline.com
 
From: "J Spezzano" <[email protected]>

| A couple weeks back I noticed MS Word working very slowly. Switching back to
| MS Word from other applications took a long time for the hourglass to
| disappear, like 10 - 20 seconds. Having two documents open at the same time
| crashed the program.
|
| Then my computer started running very slowly. Some times it runs fine, but
| most of the time the programs run very slowly. The latest is the hard drive
| sounds like it's processing something, even when I'm not doing anything on
| the computer. It will go for a long time (30 seconds easily) but then as
| soon as I move the mouse, the sound stops.
|
| It's a Dell Dimension 8250 with a 2.4 gig processor and half a gig of RAM so
| it should be pretty quick. I defragged, ran AdAware and Spy Bot, emptied my
| IE cache, recently updated my Norton protection and it says I'm virus-free,
| but no improvement. So now I don't really know what else to do. Any
| suggestions for those of us who are not computer whizes?
|
| thanks,
| jvs

What version of Ad-aware and SpyBot S&D ?

Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

To use this utility, perform the following...
Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
Choose; Unzip
Choose; Close

Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }

NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE to go through your
FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files.

C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode.
This way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor's web site.
The choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Kaspersky, Exit this menu and Reboot the PC.

You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.

When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
file. http://www.ik-cs.com/multi-av.htm


* * * Please report back your results * * *
 
J Spezzano said:
A couple weeks back I noticed MS Word working very slowly. Switching back to
MS Word from other applications took a long time for the hourglass to
disappear, like 10 - 20 seconds. Having two documents open at the same time
crashed the program.

Then my computer started running very slowly. Some times it runs fine, but
most of the time the programs run very slowly. The latest is the hard drive
sounds like it's processing something, even when I'm not doing anything on
the computer. It will go for a long time (30 seconds easily) but then as
soon as I move the mouse, the sound stops.

It's a Dell Dimension 8250 with a 2.4 gig processor and half a gig of RAM so
it should be pretty quick. I defragged, ran AdAware and Spy Bot, emptied my
IE cache, recently updated my Norton protection and it says I'm virus-free,
but no improvement. So now I don't really know what else to do. Any
suggestions for those of us who are not computer whizes?

thanks,
jvs
Click to expand...
 
JVS wrote: "the hard drive sounds like it's processing something, even when I'm not doing anything"

I just solved the same problem on my computer running Windows XP. The incessant hard drive activity was cured by stopping Windows Search.

You can check if this is the source of your problem by going START\Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Performance, right-click on Windows Search and left click on Stop.

If this solves your problem then you need to prevent the program from starting again at the next boot-up by going to START\Run, type “msconfig”, press Ok, go to Services tab and unclick Windows Search. Reboot the computer. So as not to have the System Configuration Utility show up every time you reboot, click on “Don’t show this message….”

Ted
 
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