HDD always running

I just bought a Dell studio XPS 1640 about a week ago. It ran perfectly until 2 days ago. Now when I turn on the computer it takes forever. When it finally gets running the HDD light on the case is always on and it runs very slowly. If the computer has been on for several hours the light turns off and it runs fine. But when I restart it does the same thing over again. I thought it might be indexing or something along those lines but didnt know how to find out.

Intel p8600
ati 4670
500 gig hdd 7200rpm
4 gigs ddr3 ram
blue ray

if you need more info let me know

thanks

jeremy

MS

I dont like the sound of that. can you go into device manager and check the HD tab.

to go into dev manager go to start>search>type device manager> look for HDD. if its there right click it go to properties and check if it is working properly. If it isn' there or if it has a yellow triangle on it the driver needs to be re-installed. I suspect the driver is ok but you want to look at the easy things first

let me know if you need help with this

ken

What AV program do you have ....?
Some has "auto memory check" ....."Turn it off" ....
How many programs do you have in "system tray" ....(Bottom right ..by the clock)....?
Make a note all of them ....Exept for these ..:
Go to "Start-up" menu .....delete or disable them there ...

the only thing I have running that isnt one of those is the dell help center. I also am running McAfee.

I am trying to access the device manager but it is taking forever to do anything.

Jeremy

Edit: I do 3D modeling and texturing so I have those kinds of programs (Maya, Silo, Photoshop, lightwave, zbrush)

This sounds like a virus. Since McAffee is a pretty weak antivirus, can you download the free versions of superantispyware and malwarebytes and run a full system scan.

Also, type index into the start menu and see what the index is doing.