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15 Replies Last post: Oct 10, 2007 3:08 PM by Bdt1967 1 2 Previous Next

art209

140 posts since
Jul 25, 2007

Sep 27, 2007 7:40 PM

Hard Drive Activity

I have a WD 250 GB SATA 16 MB cache hard drive in my computer build. Since the first start up it has always run at 100% with the HD light steady on while the computer is at idle. Is this normal? It works and rates 5.4 on the Windows Vista performance test.

Art

Windows XP and Vista Home Premium / Biostar TF560 A2+ / AMD Athlon 64x2 6000+ / nVidia 8800GTS 320 MB / 2 GB SDRAM DDR2 800

mphenterprises

9,120 posts since
Feb 19, 2007

1. Sep 27, 2007 8:07 PM

in response to: art209

Re: Hard Drive Activity

Hi Art. I have some questions for you:

What are the exact specifications of your computer, including Power Supply rating? (You can find the PS rating on the inside of the computer on a sticker on the side of the Power Supply)

Is this hard drive brand new?

Do you have any other hard drives?

Do you have another computer to potentially do a test?

This is my personal Dream PC: http://forums.pcworld.com/blogs/mphenterprises/2007/12/21/my-gift-to-myself

ddms70

89 posts since
Sep 24, 2007

2. Sep 27, 2007 11:42 PM

in response to: art209

Re: Hard Drive Activity

Are you sure the HD is working and that the connectors from the front of the case haven't been put on the mobo wrong. They can be a little confusing and EASILY put onto the wrong pins. Most of the time all of the wires from the front except for the usb and sound will end up on the same small area of the mobo (I guess roughly the size of a small paperclip). Being so small, in a confined space, etc. its not hard to have them off by one pin. these are the connectors you should have: pwrsw which goes to the front switch, pwrled is the green power lite on the front, hdled which flashes when your HD is active and reset(rsw, etc.) which connects to the reswitch on the front.

mphenterprises

9,120 posts since
Feb 19, 2007

3. Sep 28, 2007 4:57 AM

in response to: ddms70

Re: Hard Drive Activity

Absolutely good point, DDMS70. Custom builds are very easy to do and even easier to do incorrectly. If I am make an addendum to what DDMS70 said. If you are not 100% sure you followed the motherboard manufacturer's instructions for connecting the wires, strip everything down and start again.

This is my personal Dream PC: http://forums.pcworld.com/blogs/mphenterprises/2007/12/21/my-gift-to-myself

jbking

967 posts since
Aug 29, 2006

4. Sep 28, 2007 10:11 AM

in response to: art209

Re: Hard Drive Activity

Are you sure there aren't some services like indexing or whatever sets up the pre-fetch or background defragmenter running so that while the computer is idle from your view it isn't necessarily doing nothing?

This also reminds me that there used to be a light for "Turbo" on machines years ago as another led on the case but I don't think those are still around.

JB

Home Desktop: VoodooPC Hexx. AMD Athlon FX-60, 2 GB RAM, 2 x 250 GB HD, 7900 GTX video card. Home Laptop: HP dv4000, Pentium M, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, ATi 700 Radeon Mobility

art209

140 posts since
Jul 25, 2007

5. Sep 28, 2007 11:12 AM

in response to: mphenterprises

Re: Hard Drive Activity

The delay in replying is because I live in the US eastern time zone, submitted the thread late before going to bed and have just turned on my computer the next afternoon. Replies to mphenterprises' questions are as follows:

1. The power supply is Xclio Goodpower 500W complying with AMD ATX-GTX and Intel EPS+12V, max loads +5V=28A, +12V1=16A, +12V2=17A, +3.3V=30A, -12V=3A, +5Vsb=3A. Monitored voltage readings are below ratings well within 5%.

2. All components of this computer are brand new.

3. There are no other hard drives on this computer.

4. I have another desktop and a laptop networked with this computer.

Specs: Biostar TF560 A2+ motherboard, Athlon 64x2 6000+, nVidia 8800 GTS 320 MB, Windows Vista Home Premium

Art

Message was edited by: art209

Windows XP and Vista Home Premium / Biostar TF560 A2+ / AMD Athlon 64x2 6000+ / nVidia 8800GTS 320 MB / 2 GB SDRAM DDR2 800

art209

140 posts since
Jul 25, 2007

6. Sep 28, 2007 11:09 AM

in response to: ddms70

Re: Hard Drive Activity

The case front panel connections is a good point, but the connectors were labeled and connected (I think) according to motherboard instructions. The power switch and light operate properly, and I don't think the HD activity light connection would account for why monitors show the HD at a constant 100%. I was wondering if I had overlooked a bios setting.

This is my first computer with a SATA device, so I wasn't sure how it should act or if it's constantly putting data into the 16 MB cache. From the responses to my thread I assume the action is not normal.

Art

Windows XP and Vista Home Premium / Biostar TF560 A2+ / AMD Athlon 64x2 6000+ / nVidia 8800GTS 320 MB / 2 GB SDRAM DDR2 800

ddms70

89 posts since
Sep 24, 2007

7. Sep 28, 2007 11:44 AM

in response to: art209

Re: Hard Drive Activity

Try the wd site, they have faq's and tools like lifeguard u can use. Are you sure the monitor is correct? You can try different options in vista for power saving, etc. and see if there is a change, but don't rely on one program to tell u something is wrong, since it may be sending info back and forth to the drive causing it to appear in constant use. Also check background programs like virus scans, folding (boinc), etc.

smax013

3,905 posts since
Jan 28, 2007

8. Sep 28, 2007 12:01 PM

in response to: jbking

Re: Hard Drive Activity

jbking wrote:
Are you sure there aren't some services like indexing or whatever sets up the pre-fetch or background defragmenter running so that while the computer is idle from your view it isn't necessarily doing nothing?

This also reminds me that there used to be a light for "Turbo" on machines years ago as another led on the case but I don't think those are still around.

JB

I think that jbking might be on point. Have you checked the Windoze Vista Indexing Options? Since this is a new computer, this seems like a logical place to look for the problem...new computers don't yet have the index created yet to help speed up searches.

[soapbox] Backup good...no backup bad!! [/soap box]

art209

140 posts since
Jul 25, 2007

9. Sep 29, 2007 7:41 AM

in response to: smax013

Re: Hard Drive Activity

The Windows Indexing setting seemed like good advice, and I made the adjustment with no apparent affect on the HD activity light.

What did have an affect was deactivating Avast anti-virus. More specifically, the Standard Shield portion of the program which checks programs and files started or accessed for viruses. By deactivating just this element of the anti-virus program, the HD indicator light no longer glowed steady. This is not totally logical since the HD indicator light on my laptop with the same operating system and anti-virus with the Standard Shield activated does not act the same as on the new desktop.

Apparently, all HD act differently in activating the indicator light, and it also now appears that mine acts differently each time I turn on the computer (allowing for normal background updating activity).

Thanks for everybody's input.

Windows XP and Vista Home Premium / Biostar TF560 A2+ / AMD Athlon 64x2 6000+ / nVidia 8800GTS 320 MB / 2 GB SDRAM DDR2 800

mphenterprises

9,120 posts since
Feb 19, 2007

10. Sep 29, 2007 8:41 AM

in response to: art209

Re: Hard Drive Activity

Hi Art. I am sure I speak for everyone when I say I am glad you were able to get to the bottom of your problem. Since it seems as though this situation is resolved, please label this Discussion as "Answered."

This is my personal Dream PC: http://forums.pcworld.com/blogs/mphenterprises/2007/12/21/my-gift-to-myself

smax013

3,905 posts since
Jan 28, 2007

11. Sep 29, 2007 9:22 AM

in response to: art209

Re: Hard Drive Activity

art209 wrote:The Windows Indexing setting seemed like good advice, and I made the adjustment with no apparent affect on the HD activity light.

What did have an affect was deactivating Avast anti-virus. More specifically, the Standard Shield portion of the program which checks programs and files started or accessed for viruses. By deactivating just this element of the anti-virus program, the HD indicator light no longer glowed steady. This is not totally logical since the HD indicator light on my laptop with the same operating system and anti-virus with the Standard Shield activated does not act the same as on the new desktop.

Apparently, all HD act differently in activating the indicator light, and it also now appears that mine acts differently each time I turn on the computer (allowing for normal background updating activity).

Thanks for everybody's input.

It could be Avast updating its Virus Recovery Database. The VRDB, as I understand it, is kind of similar to the Indexing Service in that it needs to scan your hard drive to updating itself. If it is a new computer and has a lot of stuff on it, then it might take awhile. When I installed Avast on the Boot Camp partition of my MacBook Pro (only had the OS on the partition at the time) and had it run the VRDB update, it took several minutes. I could see it taking longer if you had more files and applications on the drive than just the OS.

[soapbox] Backup good...no backup bad!! [/soap box]

art209

140 posts since
Jul 25, 2007

12. Sep 29, 2007 11:43 AM

in response to: smax013

Re: Hard Drive Activity

I disabled VRDB with no affect, just for the record.

Windows XP and Vista Home Premium / Biostar TF560 A2+ / AMD Athlon 64x2 6000+ / nVidia 8800GTS 320 MB / 2 GB SDRAM DDR2 800

Bdt1967

12 posts since
Oct 10, 2007

13. Oct 10, 2007 1:25 PM

in response to: art209

Re: Hard Drive Activity

Download Speedfan and do the HardDrive test on the 3rd or 4th tab, that will tell you how your hard drives are working. If one is bad it will tell you. Also what configuration do you have these drives in.

*EVGA Nvidia Nforce 680i SLI *Raidmax Smilodon Case *Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 Allendale O.C. 3.2 GhZ *Western Digital Caviar RE SATA 3.0 *Rosewill RCX-Z2 7 blade 80mm reverse ball bearing fan *2 XFX 8600GT XXX Edition's in SLI configuration *GSkill 2Gig Ram DDR2

art209

140 posts since
Jul 25, 2007

14. Oct 10, 2007 3:02 PM

in response to: Bdt1967

Re: Hard Drive Activity

In reply to Bdt1967, I actually on have only one HD on this computer, so there's no raid configuration. After some background program tweaking, this HD now has near zero activity when the computer is idle. Computer startup and shutdown is very fast with Windows Vista, so the HD appears to be up to speed.

The only oddity is the hard drive activity light on the front of the computer, which stays on solid. But, I found that this only occurs if startup is from hibernation. If a windows shutdown is executed, the next startup results in normal HD light display. Therefore, I'm assuming that it's a glitch with the motherboard.

Art

Windows XP and Vista Home Premium / Biostar TF560 A2+ / AMD Athlon 64x2 6000+ / nVidia 8800GTS 320 MB / 2 GB SDRAM DDR2 800

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