Something keeping my CPU/HD busy

Heeter

Overclocked Like A Mother
Joined
8 Jul 2002
Messages
2,732
Hi Guys,

This is concerning my new, freshly built gaming machine. (Listed in Sig). I reinstalled my XPhome, then SP2, then mobo CD drivers, then 5.11 chipset drivers from Nvidia site, then ATI Radeon drivers. All in that order. I am running two Raptors in a striped array.

There seems to be something working in the background of my fresh install. Even when machine is just sitting still, the HD led is always flashing intermittently. I check the task manager to see if what is doing this. I can't quite pinpoint why it is doing this.

This leads to a couple of questions:

If I installed the mobo CD drivers, do I need the 5.11 drivers after? Do I need the 5.11 instead of the CD?

Do I need SOUNDMAN.EXE, NVMixerTray.exe, nvraidservice.exe working as a process?

I think that I installed too many mobo drivers.

Is there any screenshots that I can post to see if anyone can help me trackdown what is keeping my Hard drive LED busy?

Heeter
 
the drivers which come with Mobos are almost always 1-2 revisions behind what they have currently..

I would upgrade them, BUT as a secondary your HD could just be trying to organize everything, did you do a defrag after your SP2 install? It can fix alot of slow down issues...

EDIT: ALSO I bet you cant wait till this says:
Windows XPHome SP2
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 Triton Mobo Nforce3 DualDDR
2x512 OCZ Premier Series, 2x256 Corsair XMS Series DDR400
AMD Athlon64 Venice 3700+
ATI X800XL 256Meg/256bit ViVo
2x WD 36Gig Raptors, RAID0
Sony DVD16X, LG 16X Dual Layer DVD-/+R/RW
DELL 2405FPW 24" 16:10 wide aspect monitor
 
Last edited:
If your HDD is going nuts, what does the task manager say? Look under processes, sort by CPU usage and take a peek at what is grinding away.
 
Heeter said:
Hi Guys,

There seems to be something working in the background of my fresh install. Even when machine is just sitting still, the HD led is always flashing intermittently. I check the task manager to see if what is doing this. I can't quite pinpoint why it is doing this.

KC he did try, he just didnt expand on WHAT he saw...
 
You can dsiable SOUNDMAN.EXE and NVMixerTray.exe if you want, as they only provide quick access to your onboard soundcard and graphics card settings (soundman for a realtek card; nvmixertray for nvidias graphics forceware settings).

I looked up the nvraidservice.exe, and its related to your raid setup - the info I found suggests you can disable it as disabling this doesn't effect raid performance, but I can't be positive on this as I don't have a raid setup in my rig at home and I can't jump onto one of our raid servers right now.
 
What was said above: After SP2 a defrag is mandatory, it trashes the drive.

Define "intermittently" mine will burp occassionally (3-10 seconds) when inactive. Especially if a web page with ads is open.

It could just be windows retiring files in memory to the pagefile as they go stale.

Ok, I just watched 'performance as the burps occur". The activity is IE and taskmanager doing things.
 
mlakrid said:
the drivers which come with Mobos are almost always 1-2 revisions behind what they have currently..

I would upgrade them, BUT as a secondary your HD could just be trying to organize everything, did you do a defrag after your SP2 install? It can fix alot of slow down issues...

EDIT: ALSO I bet you cant wait till this says:
DELL 2405FPW 24" 16:10 wide aspect monitor

Your right, Mlakrid. Can't wait..............Your funny.


As for the issue, I have ran several defrags, disabled numerous services, deleted all the update patch and sp2 files in the WINDOWS folder, ran spybot, Disabled the Soundman.exe, Uninstalled the NVmixer, disabled the NVraidservice.exe, Ran HDTach. I am still getting flickering on the HD led. I am monitoring the Task Mangler and it's only the System Idle that's at 99%. I will post a screenie on the Task Mangler later, maybe someone can tell me what might be doing this.

The only software I have installed is Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Sygate Firewall, Printer drivers, AVG.

I still might be thinking that it's the way I installed the mobo driver's. When I finished installing SP2, I installed 5.11 from the Nvidia site right after, then I looked at the Device Mangler and I still had a bunch of hardware not installed. That's when I reached for the Mobo CD.

Heeter
 
Heeter it's not something you did wrong. Mine started doing the same thing this fall. I think it was after my MB upgrade to an AMD 64. I installed SP2 at the same time. I noticed it right away because my new HD is noisier then the old one and I can hear it go chunk when the heads move.

Moving the mouse causes HD activity now too.

If you close IE and let it sit for a while the activity should stop.

And the network activity is probably hackers (or your ISP) trying to ping your connection.
 
Your right, Lee.

Maybe I was used to my old 2500+ setup not doing nothing at idle. This is happening when I haven't touched the machine for a long while and no proggies are open.

BTW, Leejend, now you got me saying "Mangler" to everything that I post. Thanks (for nothing).......LOLOL

Heeter
 
Heeter,

First off, sorry for not reading your OP carefully enough and suggesting the task manager. That apology goes to you as well Mlakrid :)

Personally, I wouldn't suspect driver installs to cause your hdd to go nutty. If you check device manager, and as long as you don't have multiple installations of the same hardware, I wouldn't worry. However, there is something to be said for checking the internet to ensure you have the LATEST chipset, video, audio and directx software. It sounds like you have for the most part, but the Internet (vendor site, more specifically), is the best place to check. From your theory of the order that you installed drivers, the only thing that would really cause, is it may push you back a revision or two as Mlakrid already hinted at. Another note, which you probably already know, avoid Windows Updates in regards to drivers. I know they encourage these because they are "signed by Microsoft", but I have had bad experiences with those and tend to stick to vendor software exclusively, but that's my opinion.

If you boot your PC, and let it idle, how long does this continue for?

Can you check your Sygate Firewall logs for any excessive incoming traffic?

Anything funky going on in the Windows Event Viewer?

If you boot into Safe Mode, and let it idle, does it still happen?
 
Good Plan, KC.

Safe mode, it doesn't do it, it idles stable. In the event veiwer, nothing eye-catching is happening there.

I think that the sygate has picked up something though. I am getting what looks like a driver that's continuing loading for a split second then disappears for a while. Gonna try to see if I can get what it is.

Heeter
 
A version of Bootvis is actually built into XP. Every three reboots it kicks in. But a standalone version is good to have.

I think that looking at the Sygate logs, it looks like that two things keeps kicking in every once in a while.

Looks like that Sygate is getting on the net itself, (maybe searching for updates?Does it have this feature?)

I have ironed out the other one. Sygate is showing me that a "Brother" driver (Company that made my printers) is continually checking the network to see if the network printer is in "Ready" state. I disabled it in msconfig temporarily, and it looks like it is the one.

Thanks KC, for telling me to checking the Sygate logs, never thought to check those.

Heeter
 
no problem, hope the problem is fixed for you :)

I police my msconfig often, I hate having extra stuff in the systemtray and in memory :smoker:
 
kcnychief said:
Heeter,

First off, sorry for not reading your OP carefully enough and suggesting the task manager. That apology goes to you as well Mlakrid :)

Anything funky going on in the Windows Event Viewer?

If you boot into Safe Mode, and let it idle, does it still happen?

No apology needed.

Also, I dont imagine anything will be in his event viewer logs although worth looking to be sure, I thoguht the same thing, but unless he gets an error or has his thresholds setup, then nothing will be posted in the logs...

EDIT: Looks like I need to read posts better, you also said his sygate logs... oops...
 
check taskmanager for smc.exe using silly amounts of cpu...

i used to use sygate a couple of yyears ago, one problem, was that after a day or so sygate (smc.exe) would start gobbling up cpu.. only way i could fix it was to change the view from "large icons", to "connection details"

nothing could solve the fact sygate limits your lan transfers to 4mb's a sec (whilst chomping up even more cpu)

see if it is that smc.exe casuing you grief... sygate is a good firewall, but way to bugggy
 
I changed from sygate to filseclab, and that took care of the sygate connecting to the internet itself, while hitting cpu clock cycles. Don't kow why sygate does this.

Sygate limits transfers to 4MB/s? Maybe that's why I am noticing all my mapped drives opening faster since uninstalling sygate.

Heeter
 

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