High HDD usage when idle...

[ManIkWeet]

Hi,

 

If I lock my computer and go away for a while, then come back I see my HDD led being near constantly on, but as soon as I start typing/moving my mouse it stops...

 

I don't know which HDD is taking the beating (probably not my SSD but still) or what program causes it (it stops as soon as I touch it)...

 

Some suggestions on pretty standard programs that can cause this please

[Guest]

1.How much ram do you have?

2.Are you using Norton?

[SpyRosL]

When you do nothing on the PC for a certain amount of time,windows starts doing maintenance and as soon as you touch the mouse it stops.

[Nafanya]

Yes, that's normal. The ram is being worked hard as well. I can tell, because I use Crucial Ballistix Tracer LED RAM. The lights flicker/move slowly, if I surf the web. But if I leave the system idling, it will start doing something soon enough, causing the lights to flicker/move insanely fast (as if I was gaming). If it's the antivirus, then every drive is affected, but that's reading only, so it does not harm the SSD. If it's windows doing the maintenance, then it's your C:/ drive (your SSD) that's being affected. I hope defragmentation isn't active, lol. Deactivate windows backups. It writes to SSD regularly and noone uses that crap anyway.

[deviant88]

Right click on harddisk>properties>defragment(optimize) click and see if Scheduled Optimization is turned on, this on windows 8,windows 7 should be similar,if its on the just turn it off.

 

If that doesnt solve look into task manager which program uses your harddisk,you can see in windows8 task manager, if you have windows 7 you will have to run resource monitor from performance tab and see there which program uses harddrive.

My sisters laptop antivirus AVAST was scaning at 99% all the time for no reason i had to reinstall her antivirus to fix it.

[ManIkWeet]

Windows 7, all harddrives have their indexing off...

8GB RAM, Eset Smart Security

No Windows backups (takes space and who gives a crap about backups)

I can't really look at the performance monitor because the monitor goes stand-by and I have to move my mouse then...

[Nafanya]

You can go offline, shut down your antivirus (Eset Smart Security) and leave the system idling for some time. If it doesn't start doing anything, you'll know it was your Antivirus. But either way, you can relax, it's absolutely normal.