blinking hard drive light

[krmanning]

The hard drive activity light on my case is constantly blinking. It seems to work normally when the drive is active, but even when the computer seems to be doing nothing, it blinks at a rate of about 1/sec. It has done this ever since I put the system together about 6 weeks ago, and the computer seems to be working alright otherwise. Any ideas what might be causing this?

Gigabyte GA-8IEXP
P4 2.26
512 MB PC2700 DDR (1 stick)
Chaintech GF4 4200 128MB
WD 80GB hard drive
TDK 48x CD burner
Pioneer 16x DVD
Zip 100 IDE drive
onboard LAN and sound
WinXP Home

I have the HD and a Zip drive on the first IDE cable, the CD burner on the second cable, and the DVD on the raid port.

 

[Taurus]

if you have System Restore or Indexing Service enabled, it could be either one of those. they are among the first things i disabled with i install xp because i don't want them eating up my resources.

 

[arson_nick]

Do a virus scan first, make sure you don't have a virus that's eating up resources. Check your processes too, see if anything doesn't look right.

 

[BonyTony]

Its normall my pc since having Xp on constantly flashes the hard drive on and off ....my pc is up high (SFF Pc) so i notice it i can post links to other forums where it has been discussed in detail if you require it.

I have turned off numerous services listed above as well but cannot stop it...some links even blame it on liteon drives which i do own!.

 

[93tbirdsc]

Check and see if your HD is going in to Hibernation or standby mode. Go to control panel then power options and see if they are set. try setting the HD to trun off NEVER
System Standby to NEVER
and Hibernate to NEVER

Hope this helps

 

[BonyTony]

Aleady set all to never...

 

[krmanning]

The posting from BonyTony made me think. I tried disconnecting my TDK cd burner (made by LiteOn, I think). What do you know, the blinking stopped. Maybe it is some interaction there. I have tried a firmware update on the TDK drive; it works great, but the blinking hd light is still there. I guess I can live with it.

 

[spikemic]

are they on the same cable? the hard drive should be all alone (or a second one hooked there) but other stuff should not be with it (cd, cdr, dvd, zip, etc....)

 

[BonyTony]

Yes Hard drive on Ide1 CDRW on Ide2 no other devices.....seems more noticeable to people with there Pcs at eye level (as where i have read most about this is in the SFF forums where you normally keep your pc on the desk).

Cannot see anything under Windows task manager/processes to indicated or point any suspicion to something...also i never install/download without AV scanning it first.

If i disable the secondary ide channel in device manager it seems to stop it blinking ?...

I dont think its a chipset or driver issue as i have the same flashing led on a epox 8kha+ mb and on this SS51G sis based barebone pc...both running Xp He,with different drivers in each.

Only thing in common is they both use Liteon cdrw`s

 

[nagaho]

The 1/sec HDD LED blink is due to Windows constantly checking for insert of a CD. To disable this start regedit, navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SYSTEM->CurrentControlSet->Services->Cdrom

Open the AutoRun key and enter value data 0

Regards
Nagaho

 

[BonyTony]

nagaho thanks for the reply your reg edit has indeed reduced the flashing to a bare minimum

Thanks again for your help,much appreciated.

Tony.