How can I fix my parents' pc? It's constantly doing cleanup work for hours?

Although a noisy HDD is sometimes a sign that it is one its way out (and its time to back up!) the symptoms you describe sound more like a program or routine running in the background.

Do you have anti virus and spyware software installed? If so, see if they are scheduled to run at this time. Might be doing a low level scan which would not necessarily show as high CPU activity.

Also have a look to see what is running in the start up routine, just in case you have something running in background.

Go to Start

Click on Run

Type in msconfig

Click on the start up tab and have a look at the programs which are ticked. If there are any that you do not need to have running all the time (Quicktime for instance) untick them and OK it. You will have to re-boot to accept the changes.

When it re boots you will get a warning screen, make sure you put a tick in the relevant box to indicate you don't want to see this warning in the future.

Also, once you have backed it up try defragging it, and finally run error checker on it.

Do this by going to my computer

Right clicking on the hard drive icon

Select properties

Choose the tools tab

Click Check Now on error checking

I only suggest these two options last as I don't want you to mess with the drive too much until it is backed up. If it is already backed up and safe, try the last 2 options first.

First you have to find out which programme(s) are running which you do by opening task manager ( right click an empty space on the task bar at the bottom of your screen) from the drop down menu select task manager click on the processes tab which shows everything which is running on the PC. Next click on the CPU tab twice which will organise the percentage use of programmes using the CPU for example the "system idle process" might be using 80 and "Taskmngr.exe" might be using 4 or 5 but the numbers will be fluctuating. You are looking for what programmes are using the highest number.

The point is you do this when the PC is doing what it is you are complaining about, and when you find out what programme it is you open that programme up and find the "Settings" tab and either disable it and in future run the scans manually or you reset the timer for a particular day and hour.

I can't help any more than that without actually knowing more, anything else would be guesswork, but I hope I have given you some idea of what to do. Best of luck.

First check the CPU activity in 2 other ways. (1) Is the HD light on the front of the CPU (desktop) or under cover (laptop) blinking madly? (2) Go to Ctrl/Alt/Del and click the processes tab (usage column). Is there any fast activity in the processes that are listed?

Scan it with NAV or McAfee and do a spyware clean with Ad-

Aware or another spycheck. After cleaning what these show, get Diskeeper (trial copy if you don't want to pay for it) and do a continuous defrag.

If this doesn't help, the inside of the cabinet may need a cleaning.

hard drives are working all the time doing back ups and anti-virus updates,and also system restore points

you may think your hard drive is allways working but this may not be the case

the only way to stop your hard drive working so much is to remove some programs and clean out your hard drive,for example delete any folders and programs you no longer need and also run a disk clean up your self

if there has been a scheduled task created just go back to scheduled tasks(start>programs>accesories>system tools>scheduled tasks)and stop any tasks you dont want to continue

also depending on the age of your parents computer it may be just the condition of the drive,as they get older and the drive platters start to deteriorate they will make more noise and this can just be the drives spinning,although it wont actually be working that much

you can change a setting in bios that will stop the drive spinning when not in use,however this should only be done as a last resort,and a new hard drive is quite cheap these days,for example a 250gb hard drive can be bought for less than £45 at http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?Web...

good luck !

Knowing my mother, parents with PC issues can be in depth and layered. What OS is it? If it is XP you can log on as an administrator, create a new profile for your parents and delete the old one. Be sure to back up all the files in "My Documents" and all their internet favorites because they will be gone after you do this. You can also try to decipher what exactly is slowing the computer down by opening the Task Manager and going to the processes tab. Sort the tab by CPU usage and try and decipher what program is bogging the system down. If it is a defrag program that is running, set it up to run less often, I rarely run mine unless I get a wild hair up my hind end. If it is some other program that is running that is unneeded, uninstall it or at least tell it not to run at bootup. Finally, and this is my favorite way to get a clean slate, you can always back up everything on removable media and reinstall the OS.

Open your computer case and check your hard drive bay for any loose screws. If a hard drive is not securely fasten to your drive bay, it causes the hard drive to have a bad clusters. Thus, breaking your hard drive in a long run. It is not a good sign if a hard drive starts making weird sounds. I recommend you back up all your important files while you can still access your hard drive and buy a new one. Good luck!

Hmm sounds like the hard drive is about to give up the ghost ( is dieing )

good cleanup tools are sybot/ ad aware/ avg free and ccleaner you can try download these and give them a whirl however from what you have said the hard drive is about to say bye bye.

What you need to do is to buy another hard drive a bit bigger than yours if possible and get the image of your old drive ghosted over

try PC recovery

or system restore to about a few months back

SYSTEM RESTORE IS IN HELP & SUPPORT

sounds like a hardware problem, take it to a local tech.

reformat the thing, just remember to back things up to cd if you have that option