Hi,
I have Win 7 64-bit on my new system, and I've noticed that the HDD LED constantly chatters. It never goes even a second without some disk activity.
I can't compare this to XP, because my XP machine doesn't have an HDD LED (or it's broken, or it's not wired, whatever). My XP HDD is 8 years old and still going strong, though; and that's the sort of reliability I'd like in my new system. That's 8 years of almost 24/7.
In the Win 7 resource monitor, there's usually a bunch of processes using the disk; but if I remain quiet, the long term steady state comes down to NLS and System processes. I can (and may) disable NLS, but I can't disable System. If I suspend NLS when System is the only other process shown, then the disk usage graph clears, but the HDD LED flickering continues. If I suspend System, the LED flickering stops, but then I suffer the predictable consequences.
Not entirely related, I also noticed that early on, for the first several minutes after boot, I get a considerable number of page faults. Seems kind of silly since my RAM usage never goes over 15%, but it's not problematic. The page faults do cease eventually.
My questions are these:
1. Is this constant chatter a Win 7 thing, or does XP do this also?
2. Does anyone have insight as to why the System process would be constantly accessing the HDD and/or how I can stop it from doing so?
3. Since the I/O graph may be cleared (with patience), even though the LED activity continues, is it reasonable to believe that the LED activity is just a tease and no actual I/O is happening at that time?
Thanks!
I have Win 7 64-bit on my new system, and I've noticed that the HDD LED constantly chatters. It never goes even a second without some disk activity.
I can't compare this to XP, because my XP machine doesn't have an HDD LED (or it's broken, or it's not wired, whatever). My XP HDD is 8 years old and still going strong, though; and that's the sort of reliability I'd like in my new system. That's 8 years of almost 24/7.
In the Win 7 resource monitor, there's usually a bunch of processes using the disk; but if I remain quiet, the long term steady state comes down to NLS and System processes. I can (and may) disable NLS, but I can't disable System. If I suspend NLS when System is the only other process shown, then the disk usage graph clears, but the HDD LED flickering continues. If I suspend System, the LED flickering stops, but then I suffer the predictable consequences.
Not entirely related, I also noticed that early on, for the first several minutes after boot, I get a considerable number of page faults. Seems kind of silly since my RAM usage never goes over 15%, but it's not problematic. The page faults do cease eventually.
My questions are these:
1. Is this constant chatter a Win 7 thing, or does XP do this also?
2. Does anyone have insight as to why the System process would be constantly accessing the HDD and/or how I can stop it from doing so?
3. Since the I/O graph may be cleared (with patience), even though the LED activity continues, is it reasonable to believe that the LED activity is just a tease and no actual I/O is happening at that time?
Thanks!