Gotta love XP! (disk caching problems)

[Kutter]

Hi all,

I have a very odd problem that I 1. have never seen before (on any of my systems at least) and 2. Have no real idea how to fix?

I have: AMD 'Barton Core' 2800 XP 512MB Ram and a Western digital 120GB HD (in 3 partitions)

Last night my machine started to cache to hard drive 'Constantly' for hours on end, making it impossible to use!! (Simply opening a My Computer window would take anything up to 1.5 minutes - possibly longer)

Ther is no reason for this whatsoever, my system was running fine just earlier the same day!

The Facts:

I dont run a lot of background processes.

I have installed nothing new (hardware or software)

I have a firewall router and virus protection, so I doubt it is caused by a virus (unless a new one came out just yestarday? 11th May?)

My disks are NOT fragmented OR low on space in any partition.



Anyone have any idea about this?


Thx in advance,

Kutter.

 

[bcastner]

What does Task Manager show as the active process during these periods?

 

[Kutter]

Hi BC,

Thx for your quick reply. The info you've asked for I should have put in the first post, my appologies...

I did check the system processes. Nothing was running high CPU percentage (except System Idle - which was showing 98% CPU power available)

I checked each of the applications I didn't recognise with the internet (very slowly - it was very frustrating) and found them all to be things that either 1. Windows was using or needed, or 2. stuff that I wanted running, such as my firewall Virus software etc.

I did try turning everything off, and ending tasks on everything I didn't need to run at that particular time, but after leaving the machine a further 10 minutes the caching was not stopping. (I was tempted (but didn't) to leave it all night to see if it actually ended at any time)

I checked msconfig to see what was running at startup, but nothing untoward was being loaded there either...

I'm stumped.

Kutter.

 

[czarj]

My first question....have there been ANY changes to your BIOS setting's before this happened?

 

[Kutter]

No change to the machine whatsoever Czar. Absolutely nothing.

Kutter

 

[Jump1ng]

I take it the problem is still present after you have rebooted your pc?

If you go into safe mode is it doing the same thing?

If the answer is yes it's sounding like some kind of hard ware failure/problem. Try downloading WD disktools and run a full check on your hard drive for errors. Change IDE cables etc.

If the answer is no it sounds like you have some kind of software driver issue.
You never said what motherboard you have but try getting the latest drivers for it which should update the hard drive controller drivers etc.

But the mainthing is to first find if its a hw problem or software/driver

 

[Kutter]

Thx for your help Jump1ng,

I have tried Safe mode, and the problem goes away which makes me think it is a driver problem too... However, and as a PC engineer I HATE this particular sentance, but here it is relevant.

"But it WAS working before!"

Like i say, I hate that when users tell me that, because I know they have done 'something' to the machine. But in my case I literally went away from the machine, came back turned it on, started up my copy of 3D Studio as I do every day, and there was the problem. No change in software, hardware background running tasks anything...

Thats why I'm so confused

Thx again,

Kutter.

 

[bcastner]

Have Startup Inspector take a look:

http://www.windowsstartup.com/