Laptop Lags/stops and starts

I have a HP Pavilion dv7 laptop with Win 7 Pro 64 bit. Within the last two weeks the machine has started to stop then start again. As I type this it has stopped for a second and if I continue to type it catches up. Also, when I am scrolling on a page it will stop and then catch up. The hard drive access light is on all of the time. It will blink off occasionally but not very often. I have bitdefender installed which has found nothing. I have run Malwarebytes which found nothing. I have used a bootable CD to run Kaspersky and F-Prot both of which have found nothing. It seems like the hard drive running all of the time is causing the problem but I can't find what is causing it. Any ideas?

 

When I run Task Manager it shows 8 CPUs this is an Intel I7 with 4 actual CPUs and 4 virtual CPUs. CPU usage is less than 2%. Memory usage is about 50% which seems high. Hard drive access light is constantly on. I will try process explorer and see what it shows.

 

A few other things I'd check:

* Do a full scan with Malware Bytes or a similar trusted program. Also, check CONTROL PANEL > PROGRAMS AND FEATURES to see if anything you don't recognize installed itself on the PC right before the problem started. I've seen a few pieces of malware lately that don't announce themselves with pop-ups.

* If the HDD light is constantly on (even when the PC is idling), I would run CHKDSK. A drive that runs constantly (not the light flashing on and off) could potentially be a sign of a hard drive that's on its last legs. As always, keep your data and files backed up for if/when the drive eventually crashes.

 

I have Bitdefender loaded and have run full scan. I have run full scan with Malware Bytes. I have used bootable CDs to run Kaspersky and F-Prot rescue scans which scan the machine will windows is not running. All have found nothing. I have run CHKDSK a couple of times with good results. Since Plodr's post I have run process explorer which shows very low CPU usage and even very low hard drive usage even though the access light is on. Even as I type this the words stop appearing on the screen and then catch up to where I am at. Some programs even say that they are "not responding" for a few seconds and then come back. Everything is backed up to network storage so I not concerned about losing data it is just a pain to try to do anything when it stops and starts like it is doing.

 

Ran SeaTools smart check, short drive self test, and long Generic, all came up green and happy. I guess the next step is to remove Bitdefender. Its strange though, I have Bitdefender loaded on 2 other machines and am not having any problems.

 

Your not going to believe this. Removed Bitdefender and installed Microsux security essentials. Made no difference to my problem. Started disconnecting things form the laptop and when I disconnected the wireless mouse and keyboard things started working normally. Replaced the batteries in the keyboard and now it is working normally. I had no indication that the batteries were bad from the Logitech software. Go figure.