Constant red light on computer case?!

I can already see someone throwing something at my head and yell "n00000b!", but I still need to ask. Anyways.......

Every computer has this red light on the case, the one that generally comes on when it is loading something big. I have noticed that on my computer, it comes on about 5min after login and stays on for good 10-15min. During this time, things run very slowly. How do I figure out what is causing this?

- I have used the program "process explorer" to look at CPU usage. Idle process is at 95%. So nothing is sucking up my CPU resource.
- I have recently formatted my computer, and since then I have only installed AVG, Comodo (firewall only), KMPlayer, 7zip, firefox, AIMP2, SyncBack, and Axcrypt.

 

Purely a guess here but AVG is probably set to do a virus scan at boot up. That would explain the heavy accessing of the hard drive (the red light on your computer is probably the HD activity light that comes on when the HD is being accesssed).

How much memory (RAM) do you have on the machine?

 

I have 2Gig of ram.
AVG is set to do a scan every Wed at 8pm, so it is probably not AVG.
Do you know of a way to check what is using all the ram?

 

2GB of RAM is plenty. Hmmm, that was my best guess.

Next time it happens try Ctrl+Shift+Esc to get to Task Manager and first look at CPU and Physical Memory(RAM) at the bottom of the window. Are they both below 50%? That would rule out the obvious of your computer being maxed out on computing power. Then it would be a question of what is accessing your HD for 15 minutes at a time.

 

Also, go to RUN and type in MSCONFIG and hit return . . . see what programs or processes are starting when Windows boots.

Determine which ones you want to start with windows, and which ones you don't need running. A lot of programs load their kernel with windows, so when you go to use that program it starts faster . . . but it's hardly worth saving a few seconds if you rarely or never use the program in question, but allow it to constantly suck up system resources in the background. I always thought of this as leaving my car running 24/7 in case I would want to drive it.

If you aren't sure what a process does, google can usually come up with an answer for you. Don't use MSCONFIG to stop a process - go into services or into the individual program settings and take care of them there. MSCONFIG is a troubleshooting tool, and often adjustments there don't "stick".

 

Is file indexing turned on?
Look in scheduler to see if anything is set to run - like a defragger in the background.