Constant HDD activity ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Daze N. Knights
  • Start date Start date
I've already updated my bios to the most recent available dated
12/27/06. When I attempt to update my HDD's driver software online via
its "properties" in the device manager, I am told that it is currently
"up to date." (This is a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200
RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive.)
 
Daze N. Knights said:
Three days ago, I installed Vista 32 Ultimate RTM on a freshly built
system of all-new components. Since then, I've been finding a fix for
this and tweaking that and adjusting something else. All during that
time, until this afternoon, the HDD activity LED tended to show little
activity when I wasn't actually using the pc or while just typing
posts and emails, etc. But suddenly, this afternoon, with virtually
everything about the system finally all set to my satisfaction, the
HDD activity LED became *incessantly* active. For the past several
hours, it has continually blinked at a rate of at least once per
second, nonstop, even while I'm doing absolutely nothing with the pc.
Investigating the situation, I've watched the disk read/write activity
in the Windows "Reliability and Performance" window and have noticed a
LOT of indexing activity; but I have *also* found that, when all
read/write activities periodically cease completely, the HDD activity
LED *continues* to blink. Can anyone help me guess what's going on
here?
Click to expand...


Deja vue, anyone?

It's perfectly normal and it's called auto insert notification (or
autorun or autoplay) and people complained about it when they first
installed Windows 95 and again with 98, 2000, and XP. Some people were
crazy enough to believe that their drive was being accessed by Microsoft
to check for piracy (gasp!), but of course that was just rampant
paranoia.

Vista does the same thing, where it polls the CD or DVD drive once per
second to check for a disc or to see if a disc has been changed, and if
so, the auto insert notification calls on the autorun file which starts
the program or plays the music on the disc.

This polling is considered disk activity even if no data is moved, and
most onboard drive controllers (like IDE and SATA) show this as a brief
disk access, so the activity light flashes.

If you disable the autorun feature, the disc polling does not stop with
XP or later versions of Windows. With older versions, like Win98,
disabling auto insert notification would also turn off the disc polling
and the light would not flash.
 
Thanks for the suggestion, Ray. I have now tried the beta 8 and ended up
with exactly the same results as I had using v4.31. No CPU temps. Only
six attributes listed for the HDD. And no online analysis for the HDD.
My motherboard (Intel DP965LT) isn't included in the online listings (in
fact, no Intel chipset beyond 945 seems to be included there).
 
Thanks for that information, Bill. As you describe it, I suspect that
you may be right, but I sure wish that there was some way to test your
assertion and confirm it for myself. I would hate to have a subtly
failing HDD on my hands and just let it slide.

One unmentioned aspect of this situation that lends some support to your
assertion is that I only first noticed this LED behavior after making a
change to my DVD burner setup yesterday. When I built my system last
Friday, I included a new LG DVD burner (IDE), which I used to install
Vista the next day and continued using until Tuesday, when I replaced
the LG (IDE) burner with a new Satsung (SATA) DVD burner. I used the
Satsung burner alone until the following afternoon, during which time I
had still noticed no constant, unending HDD LED activity. Wednesday
afternoon, however, I hooked up *both* new DVD burners (one IDE and one
SATA), and it was after that I began noticing the continual HDD LED
activity. Wondering if the two events might be related, I disconnected
the IDE burner, but the HDD LED activity persisted unabated, so I
guessed that the cause of the activity must lie elsewhere. (I have since
reconnected both burners, and the LED continues blinking, still.)

Why, might you guess, was there no continual HDD LED activity until I
connected *both* burners, when it hadn't occurred with just either one
alone connected. And why, might you guess, does the HDD LED activity now
remain continual (actually about two blinks per second)even after
disconnecting one of the two drives?

Thanks for very much for your input.
 
Bill:

An obvious way to test your assertion has occurred to me: Disconnect
*both* DVD burners and see if the HDD LED incessant activity goes away.
Well, I just tried it, and . . . . . . . YOU WERE RIGHT !!! While I
still get quite a lot of blinking, the constant--two or so blinks per
second--activity is gone. There is quite a noticeable difference. And
when the Windows Performance and Reliability monitor shows no reading or
writing going on on the HDD, the LED is completely silent.

Thanks so much for clearing this up for me! I had gotten quite
concerned. Now, I can turn back to my SpeedFan etc CPU and HDD
monitoring problems and attack them as an entirely separate issue
(probably having more to do with the monitoring apps not being ready for
my new equipment than anything else). And the apparent solution to my
overactive HDD LED problem is to cut down the distraction by masking the
LED :)
 
Daze N. Knights said:
Bill:

Thanks so much for clearing this up for me! I had gotten quite
concerned.
Click to expand...

It's funny that each new version of Windows has had the same reaction
when people notice the disk activity light flashing. Hence the reason I
said, "Deja vue".
Now, I can turn back to my SpeedFan etc CPU and HDD monitoring
problems and attack them as an entirely separate issue (probably
having more to do with the monitoring apps not being ready for my new
equipment than anything else). And the apparent solution to my
overactive HDD LED problem is to cut down the distraction by masking
the LED :)
Click to expand...

I don't use SpeedFan, but it's my guess you'll just need to wait for an
updated version that is compatible with Vista and/or your motherboard.
Personally, I've used the PCProbe software that came with my Asus
motherboard. It works just fine in Vista as long as it's installed as
Admin.
 
And thanks again, Bill. What a relief!

It's funny that each new version of Windows has had the same reaction
when people notice the disk activity light flashing. Hence the reason I
said, "Deja vue".


I don't use SpeedFan, but it's my guess you'll just need to wait for an
updated version that is compatible with Vista and/or your motherboard.
Personally, I've used the PCProbe software that came with my Asus
motherboard. It works just fine in Vista as long as it's installed as
Admin.
Click to expand...
 
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