X41 Hard drive near-constant access

[Rax]

Can anyone shed some light on this?

I've got a new X41, and it's working great. 1 gig of ram, Pentium 1.5, 40 gig HD, and the ultrabase. I use it almost exclusively for word, outlook, and other office based tasks, along with web browsing.

But for some reason, it accesses the hard drive almost constantly, even when I haven't loaded anything new for quite a while. The drive makes soft clicking noises, and runs far more often than seems necessary - especially with the memory I have and the processes I'm running. Is this normal? Is there any software that can let me see what exactly my drive is doing?

Any ideas?

[em500]

Is there any software that can let me see what exactly my drive is doing?

Sure: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html and
(very low-level) http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Diskmon.html.

[rjs]

Please post any findings as I am having the same problem wiht my X41.

[blackomegax]

blame windows. windows is really bad about not caching constantly accessed files to ram. (like say, if you're running aol AIM, it has one dll that it pages every second, if that isnt loaded to ram, then you get constant HDD access)

[KentM]

I'm experiencing the same problem when using ZoneLabs firewall. If I shut it down, the constant hard disk access disappears...

I have also seen some persons blaming the IBM message center on this issue. I don't use it so I can't tell.

[malone]

I too am experiencing hard drive clicking every second or so. About every second I hear a soft, light click (audible in a quiet room at typing distance to the computer), and about every minute or two I hear a "shr-clunk!". The latter seems common to most laptop computers I've had and seen, but the former (the whole clicking every second deal) I'm a bit new to...

Has anyone found a resolution to this issue? Is there any acoustic management software for these X41 hard drives? What exactly is the every-second clicking caused by?

Is this related in any way to the 'HDD clicking on X41T - cache problem on the drive?' sticky thread?

[mhm]

I'm experiencing the same problem when using ZoneLabs firewall. If I shut it down, the constant hard disk access disappears...

I gave up on ZoneLabs since you can't disable the logging (every 10s) or move the log to a ram drive. The Symantec suite shipped with the x41 is just as bad with 5s interval writes.

The AVG firewall/anti-virus is very quiet in comparison since it barelly writes anything. The combo is not free but reasonable and I decided for it after the 30 days trial. I never tought the noise would be a decision factor when buying software...

-mhm

[jdhurst]

I had that problem a long while back, and it was a retail version of Norton Firewall checking MSN Messenger every second or so. I disabled Messenger and this setting and the hard drive access became vastly less frequent. Today I use the commercial version of Symantec Client Security, don't use Messenger or AIM or such like, and my hard drive is frequently "off" for long periods.

How can you determine this?

Turn off your computer, wait, restart it. Let it fully load and do not use it for 10 minutes or so. Then search for files altered today and sort in date (time) sequence. Look for files that have been accessed very frequently or very recently. Then look in your firewall or other application logs to see if they are accessing these files.

This is not a bullet-proof technique, but it can get you started in the right direction.
... JD Hurst

[Grey Area]

Yes, I think it may be possible to completely silence an idle X41 by carefully choosing your programs/services and suspending others. I had mine down to a few clicks every thirty minutes or so, but I felt it was not worth it, as I had to turn off Copernic desktop search, antivirus etc. For a comparison I monitored my desktop computer with Filemon/Diskmon for a while, and it actually had vastly more disk accesses than my X41. But as the desktop's drive is buried in that big case below the table, with a big fan running constantly, the drive is practically inaudible. On the tiny X41 there is just a thin layer of plastic between the drive and my hands, and every activity is much more noticeable.

[malone]

I've done what was suggested--that is, to see if any files seem to stand out in terms of constant access--but to no avail. Recently, I decided I'd try to wipe the system completely to see if that'd get rid of the clicking. I formatted the HD, and put in a fresh retail copy of XP. Even with nothing installed (not even drivers), there was clicking every few seconds.

My second thought was that perhaps the swap file was being accessed too frequently. I have 1.5 GB of RAM, so I figured I could just disable the virtual RAM entirely. I did so, and it had no noticeable effect.

Has anyone found a reliable resolution to the way XP seems to be accessing the HD? The every-second clicking--soft as it is--is rather annoying!

[jdhurst]

I think you have to dig farther. I have two XP Pro machines where the build is now a couple of years old and both machines have all sorts of stuff loaded. Three things: (1) I don't use any instant messengers or like tools; (2) I don't use Bit Torrent or like; (3) I use Symantec Corporate security (which is very unlike Norton). Neither machine accesses the drive constantly - no ticking, and no drive light showing.

So, even by example of one, and to the chagrin of the Windows haters, it *cannot* be Windows alone causing the problem. If it were, it would have to happen to me and it is not.
... JD Hurst