Hard drive running non-stop windows ME

While browsing eBay the hard drive started running non-stop and browsing became intorerably slow (30-40 seconds for a response). The only thing that stopped it was rebooting. The same thing happened once before (several months ago) again while browsing eBay and continued for over a half hour until I rebooted. I know that ME has scheduled tasks that it runs automatically, and this may be one of them. However, the task bar shows no indication of whats going on. Is there some way that I can discover what the computer is doing at times like this.
I am running:
Sony Vaio PCV-RX470DS 1.5 GHz Pentium4 128mb
Earthlink ISP from Sprint/Embarq DSL
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0

 

Hi Don...and welcome to the BBS...

Couple of places to start...assuming your virus protection is up to date..

A:One of the latest things is to have a download start just by virtue of the fact that you accessed the web page ...for instance flash player from adobe...then they ask to install it...
B:look at the size of your swap file..some of these newer DSL config utilities write everything to the swap file (C:\WINDOWS\WIN386.SWP) I was getting swap files in the 1 to 2 gig range till I found that...slowed things to a crawl..
C:grab Sysinternals process explorer let in run and see what is clogging the traffic http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/ProcessExplorer.mspx

Cheers
Jake

 

Thanks Jake, I really appreciate your quick responce to my thread. I took your advice and downloaded Process Explorer. I think this program is going to give me just the kind of information I was hoping to see.

Don

 

Windows ME

Windows ME - Bill Gates revenge on the world.
Other than the introduction of system restore is there anything good to be said of Windows ME.
Why was it introduced other than to torment people to upgrade to XP ?
Some people claim that it is the best operating system ( os) for laptops but I have not been happy with results.
People especially older people will insist on the phone that they have Windows 2000. When you see the computer it is invariably a Dell with Windows ME.

 

LOL ...It can be aggravating....at best it takes much more effort than 98se to become stable ...my personal opinion ...ME was a shot fired accross the bow of boot to dos lovers ...one thing, USB and NIC card support made some strides...otherwise, I am not missing a thing by keeping my 98se....

Cheers
Jake