Constant hard drive activity?

I think the 2 second pulse LED issue is an HPism. It has nothing to do with background processes in the sense of things reading or writing the HD. I've seen a lot of posts about systems with CD auto-insert notification enabled causing it on XP and other OS.

I have auto-insert for all removable media disabled. I think in this case it has to do with polling the memory stick slots. On my HP dual core the HD LED blinks like a clock ticking. On my HP quad core, the HD LED doesn't blink, but if look into the top of the case where the memory stick connectors are(dark translucent plastic cover apparently,) I can see a red LED come on now and then. I think on the older machine for some reason this polling lights the HD LED.

Much ado about nuthin'. I hate it when that happens!!

TBH, the only background processes that mildly annoy me are the SearchFilterHost.exe, SearchIndexer.exe and SearchProtocolHost.exe simply because they start at the drop of a hat and seemingly take forever to plod through their business.

But it's not annoying enough to change, as it has little to no impact on performance.

smarteyeball said:

...simply because they start at the drop of a hat and seemingly take forever to plod through their business.

They only come on when files in the index locations are updated, or added. And the reason they can take time is if something else is using most if not all of the I/O available. The Windows Search processes work on a low priority background thread, they receive no love from the scheduler until the resources they need are mostly free. When setting index locations, it is best to select locations that do not change often, and those location you actually search most.

I am also having my hd make noises like searches...anyway I can hear it often. I've disabled everything mentioned in the thread so far.

I noticed in my firewall settings that my HP Printer has something like over 10 entries in the firewall setting....like it is talking on the internet...back to HP base or something.

I wondered if all that talking (from HP and anything else allowed to chat with the internet) would produce communications between the hd and the internet...like the internet is reading stuff from my hd?

But then earlier someone said that his hd still cycles and makes noise in safe mode without internet connection...

Anyway...the noise isn't gonna bother me. I've just installed and the case is on my desk by my right ear without the side panel on. Usually it would sit on the floor, with the side panel on...and mybe I've never really noticed much noise before.

Be that as it may....I would love to know exactly what is happening to make the hd noise. (and it's not deadly sounding clicking scary noise...it's just soft activity noise). I just would like to know what the go is out of curiosity.

...as a few people said...this topic is all over the net with few solutions/ explanations