M4400 Constant Drive Access

Say, I have 3 new M4400s that are constantly accessing the hard drive (every 1 sec) even when running in Safe Mode. Running XP pro. SP-3. Dell BIOS A19. One machine used for testing has been left on for 2 weeks so any indexing and encryption should be completed. The interesting thing is that when the optical drive is removed it nearly stops. (Runs only every 30 s or so). I have a year old M4400 that does not exhibit this behavior. Two primary differences are: it's running Dell BIOS A13 and does not have Safeboot encryption.

Any thoughts or ideas are much appreciated,

-LankShark2

 

First thing I'd try, is getting rid of safeboot encryption.Then all the other security overhead like USH etc....but then security isn't a requirement for me