Re: Hard drive light flickers continuously.

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I understand that there will be activity in the background, but my personal computer (also running XP Home SP2) has no low level HD light activity at all. The light only flashes when I'm doing something and expect it.

I've turned off WMI Logging on both computers. Originally on my computer, I DID have continual low-level HD light activity. Turning off WMI Logging put an end to it. However, on my friend's computer, doing this had no effect.

R. McCarty wrote:
Even without any foreground applications open and running an XP
system is going to have disk activity. My system is configured with
a minimum of background services ( 39 ). This includes AV ( Nod32 )
and Zone Alarm "Free" Firewall with Windows Defender.
Using SysInternals FileMon and DiskMon I log at least 73 read &
write operations per minute. During this watched interval I can see
the faceplate LED illuminate maybe 8 to 9 flashes.
Most file activity ( not necessarily a disk read or write ) deals with
Vsmon ( Zone Alarm )

I remember when I used ZA that I emailed them asking what Vsmon was. They were nice enough to email me back and tell me. Now though, I use Kerio 2.1.5. It's also what I put on my friends computer, and if I turn it off there is no effect on the blinking HD light.

Svchost calls and NOD32's resident monitor.
I don't doubt that you're having consistent disk access, it just may
not be excessive. One piece of information missing in this issue is the
applications you have loaded on the PC.

Sorry, but excessive or not isn't really the issue. In my OP I stated the reason I want no continual HD flashing.

"John Corliss" <jcorliss@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:13q47k8133n18d2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks for replying. I set all the power settings at "Never" the day before yesterday, didn't stop the flickering.

A little while ago, I opened "Services" in Administrative Tools and, one by one, started turning all of them off that I could. I finally got down to the ones I can't turn off and even THAT didn't stop the hard drive light from flickering.

Damn... I just snatched the last hair out of my scalp. I'm bald as a billiard now. 80)>

Unknown wrote:
In control panel---power options do you have "turn off hard disks"? If so, set it to never.
"John Corliss" <jcorliss@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:13q3tv5t2it8e41@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I did as you suggested, but I'm afraid it made no difference. I did Google Usenet and found all this though:

http://tinyurl.com/29p57r

Seems a LOT of other people have run into this kind of problem. Solutions have been spotty though.

R. McCarty wrote:
One last suggestion, on the traditional PATA controller you might
check the Device Manager entry and make sure that any taps on
it that are unused is set to None. This option is usually found on the
Advanced (TAB) of the Primary or Secondary controller.

"kim" <faked@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OSYvBzAZIHA.5900@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yep latest drivers chipset drivers ect installed.
I just checked the bios updates history and there`s no mention of anything aluding to this "problem"
Thanks
Kim

"R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:uqydWiAZIHA.4160@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Since both of you are using an AMD processor I'm assuming that you
both have the latest "Cool-&-Quiet" driver installed (?). Also I'd make
sure you have the latest nVidia Chipset driver installed. Finally, I would
check the BIOS firmware history chart and see if any mention is made
of a fix for the SATA controller or drive access LED.

"kim" <faked@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:uXs2PeAZIHA.1204@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Not much help i`m afraid but i`ve had the exact same issue with my machine.
New build last year, Asus m2n8-vmx mobo, Athlon 64x2 duel core processor,
Maxtor HDD 80gb, Nec DVD-RW ND-3550a, ATAPI DVD D DH16D2P dvd rom, Nvidai
Geforce 6200, 2gb RAM, XP home sp2. Clean install and the HDD light flicks on and off about every 2 or 3 seconds but as in your setup not in the bios but still does it in safe mode, Turned off indexing disabled startup items ect, disconnected optical drives,tried different cables, Asked in various forums you name it. I gave up in the end :-( It`s still doing it now but the machine seems to run ok. Please post back if you do find an answer.
Kim

"John Corliss" <jcorliss@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13q25lqgkpqjd1b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
First of all, if this is the wrong group, please point me in the right
direction.

Now on to the problem:

I just put a new ASRock K7VT4A PRO motherboard in a friend's computer (512
MB, AMD Athlon XP 1600+ CPU, Western Digital WD400BB-00DEA0 model 40 GB
HD) and installed XP Home on it. Then I updated the OS to SP2 and
installed all critical updates possible.

At some point, I noticed that the hard drive light flickers about every
second. Not only that, but the activity happens if I boot to Safe Mode. It
doesn't do it while I'm in the BIOS though.

AAARRRGHHH!

Other than the continual flickering of the light, the computer runs okay,
but *MY* computer is running the same OS and the hard drive light doesn't
flicker unless it's doing something.

Here's what I've done to try to stop the hard drive light activity in my
friend's computer:

I've turned off all tasks and file indexing, made no difference.

I don't have MS Office installed on it.

After configuring the Task Manager's "Processes" tab to show all I/O reads
and writes, I looked to see what's causing it but it didn't show anything.
Sysinternal's Process Monitor doesn't show anything going on either.

I turned of Auto-Insert Notification, but it didn't stop light from
flashing.

I checked for rootkits, but found none (not that the computer should be
infected, what with a fresh install and all.)

I've probably done a few other things which I'm forgetting too.

I've killed all unneeded services but it didn't do any good.

Does anybody have any other ideas as to what's causing this? I'm snatching
myself bald with this problem!

NOTE: Please don't tell me that it's normal or acceptable, and to put up
with it or suggest putting electrical tape over the light. I'm sorry, but
I will ignore any such replies because IMO the hard drive light flickering
can also be a sign of malware activity (although not in this case).
Because of this, it's a good idea to have nothing non-malware related
causing it to flicker all the time when the computer is idle.

TIA.
--
John Corliss




--
John Corliss
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hard drive light flickers continuously.
    ... and I suspect that those who say their disk activity LED is not flashing have not really looked directly at the LED. ... I finally got down to the ones I can't turn off and even THAT didn't stop the hard drive light from flickering. ... Clean install and the HDD light flicks on and off about every 2 or 3 seconds but as in your setup not in the bios but still does it in safe mode, Turned off indexing disabled startup items ect, disconnected optical drives,tried different cables, Asked in various forums you name it. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Hard drive light flickers continuously.
    ... and I suspect that those who say their disk activity LED is not flashing have not really looked directly at the LED. ... I finally got down to the ones I can't turn off and even THAT didn't stop the hard drive light from flickering. ... Clean install and the HDD light flicks on and off about every 2 or 3 seconds but as in your setup not in the bios but still does it in safe mode, Turned off indexing disabled startup items ect, disconnected optical drives,tried different cables, Asked in various forums you name it. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Hard drive light flickers continuously.
    ... I finally got down to the ones I can't turn off and even THAT didn't stop the hard drive light from flickering. ... I just checked the bios updates history and there`s no mention of anything aluding to this "problem" ... Clean install and the HDD light flicks on and off about every 2 or 3 seconds but as in your setup not in the bios but still does it in safe mode, Turned off indexing disabled startup items ect, disconnected optical drives,tried different cables, Asked in various forums you name it. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Hard drive light flickers continuously.
    ... Make sure you have current system restore data. ... before yesterday, didn't stop the flickering. ... I noticed that the hard drive light flickers about ... what with a fresh install and all.) ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Hard drive light flickers continuously.
    ... What kind of disk activity if nothing is running? ... before yesterday, didn't stop the flickering. ... I noticed that the hard drive light flickers about ... what with a fresh install and all.) ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)