HDD light flashes even at idle...

M

mis3

Gawd
Joined
Jul 4, 2000
Messages
827
Just set up my P5E-WS with the following components (all SATA devices):

P5E-WS, Q6600-G0, Freezer Pro 7, 2x2 GB OCZ2P8004GK, eVGA 8800 GTS-512MB, WD5000AAKS, 2 SATA DVD_writers, Cosior-620W, Antec P182

I noticed that the front HDD light flashes (about every second) even the computer is idle. Is this normal?
 
I am using Windows XP Professional 32-bit.

Maybe there is a link check between the motherboard and the SATA hard drive to enable hot swap functionality...
 
Mine does it too. Windows XP 32bit. Kinda curious myself, but never thought too much into it.
 
mine does it too. it was nice with Vista as you can see exactly what is happening on your disk I/O
 
Are you guys using SATA hard drives? With my old PC with IDE drive, the hard disk activity light did not flash continuously like this.

I did some research and there is something called Last Access TimeStamp in Windows. The NTFS driver automatically updates this timestamp every time a hard drive is accessed. Since the hard disk is accessed all the time, this would (at least theoretically) affect performance.

My Antec-P182 has a front panel which covers this activity light. I would think this can be annoying for some people.
 
Another explanation, probably more likely: many mobo's have a single LED for any IDE/SATA controller access. Including optical drives. Windows constantly polls removable drives by default, about every second, looking for media changes. It's part of the AutoRun logic. You can try disabling AutoRun entirely to test that theory, but I'm not certain if that stops it from polling, or just makes it ignore media changes.
 
Malatov said:
Another explanation, probably more likely: many mobo's have a single LED for any IDE/SATA controller access. Including optical drives. Windows constantly polls removable drives by default, about every second, looking for media changes. It's part of the AutoRun logic. You can try disabling AutoRun entirely to test that theory, but I'm not certain if that stops it from polling, or just makes it ignore media changes.
Click to expand...

How do I disable Auto-Run?
 
silasbear said:
Want to see what is always accessing your hard drives?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896642.aspx
Click to expand...

SysInternals are some great tools, but FileMon has been deprecated and replaced with Process Monitor, which combines FileMon and RegMon with a lot of other enhancements. ;)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

I'm a die-hard SysInternals fan, and glad to see M$ hasn't completely screwed them up since acquiring them (and Mark).
 
Malatov said:
SysInternals are some great tools, but FileMon has been deprecated and replaced with Process Monitor, which combines FileMon and RegMon with a lot of other enhancements. ;)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

I'm a die-hard SysInternals fan, and glad to see M$ hasn't completely screwed them up since acquiring them (and Mark).
Click to expand...


Holy CRAP, how did I miss all this fantastic stuff !!! Makes Task Manager look like an etch-a-sketch. (I gotta get down in the sofware forums more often)

THANKS !!

Link to main homepage of Sysinternals.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

Note to self: Get this burned to CD before Microsoft buries it.
 
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