You need to find and identify the specific process or application that's
runs every few seconds.You can do this with Windows Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del key), select the Processes Tab,
Next, click on the CPU column twice, this should bring the System Idle
process to the top (as long as you are not using any other applications).
Then about every few seconds you should see another process
(the one that's probably the cause of your disk activity) float to or near
the top of the list.
For more exploratory and detailed look, download and try Process Explorer:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar menu select View and check 'Show Process Tree'
and 'Show Lower Pane' options.
(This will provide the detailed info you need)
Next click on the CPU column to sort processes by %CPU usage.
Every few seconds you should see another process float to
or near the top of the list.
Now quickly click (before it drops back down the list) on the process
of interest that's listed in the CPU % column.
An alternate method of identifying the process causing the CPU usage
to spike is to double click on the Graph just below the Menu bar.
This will open the 'System Information' window, which has a larger
display of all three graphs. Now move your mouse over any spike in the
CPU Usage graph to see what process/application or service is the
cause of the spike.
Notes:
1) Some entries like Explorer and svchost may need to be expanded
to show the detail, (sub processes), in this case click on the + located
to the left of the entry.
2) Once you select/highlight a process, right click and from the
options listed select the: 'Search Online' option.
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
