hourglass symbol popping up while in idle

From: steve (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 09/30/04 

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:03:59 -0700

The hourglass symbol will intermittently pop up beside
the pointer / arrow, while any given program is idling.

In addition the PC / ACTIVITY light on the cable modem is
always flickering. Small intermittent sounds coming from
hard drive also.

Have run spyware, trojanware scans but there is nothing
detected.

Thanks for your time.