excess harddrive access when idle

[redss]

I've been noticing that often my computer harddrive is constantly being accessed when I've been away from the computer awhile (screensaver is active).

Upon checking the task manager I see that within the top line, ("system idle process&quot, for every second that passes, the CPU time is incremented by 1 second, which is the same instant that I hear the harddrive being written to.
(its a laptop so the harddrive accesses are clearly audible, and its running windows 2000).

Isn't there a way to get that process to write to RAM so that when I am away from my computer for hours, the harddrive won't be constantly accessed, thereby wearing it out faster? I'd like to leave my APM set so that the harddrive will stay on, just not moving & writing...

 

[chakorules]

How much memory do you have installed in that computer?

--
Chris
PCI & ISA Motherboard Diagnostic POST CARD

http://www.elstonsystems.com/prod/pcpostcard.html

 

[redss]

256 Meg. I'm getting the impression that its not really the task manager thats doing the disk writes, but that its one of the services that is enabled, which could be disabled... does that sound right?

 

[chakorules]

256 MEG should be enough memory for most services to run without having to CACHE to the hard disk.

It could be the antivirus, but I think that's a lame cop out, most antivirus software seem to be well behaved now.

What does you CPU chart look like? Does it spike up to 100% then drop out to 0-3% at idle when it does a disk write or read?

--
Chris
PCI & ISA Motherboard Diagnostic POST CARD

http://www.elstonsystems.com/prod/pcpostcard.html