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    Does anybody elses hard drive light always blink?

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by jer12, Aug 10, 2007.

  1. jer12

    jer12 Newbie

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    The hard drive led at the right of the keyboard is always blinking for me and the drive seems to always be making quiet clicking sounds even when I'm not doing anything.
     
    jer12, Aug 10, 2007
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  2. Zetto

    Zetto Notebook Deity

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    Do you have Vista? It's prolly just doing it's thing, indexing drive or pre-caching apps into the memory.
     
    Zetto, Aug 10, 2007
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  3. nicedream

    nicedream Notebook Guru

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    It could be some of the indexing and other performance-enhacing "features" of Vista. You can turn them off. Do a google search for "Vista disk thrashing".
     
    nicedream, Aug 10, 2007
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  4. bobcat7677

    bobcat7677 Newbie

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    It's Vista thrashing the disk. If you got Vista Business on it you can call Microsoft and get a "retrograde key" to put XP on it for free. You would also notice a speed increase to some degree with XP.
     
    bobcat7677, Aug 10, 2007
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  5. mtylerjr

    mtylerjr Notebook Deity

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    Are you sure its not the LoJack software, checking every 50 milliseconds to see if someone stole your hard drive?
     
    mtylerjr, Aug 10, 2007
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  6. jer12

    jer12 Newbie

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    So do other people's hard drive lights blink every few second even when not performing any tasks?
     
    jer12, Aug 10, 2007
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  7. -Recoil-

    -Recoil- Notebook Consultant

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    well mine does... not very often.. just every 3-8 seconds or so...i cant see why your worried though.
     
    -Recoil-, Aug 10, 2007
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  8. Waveblade

    Waveblade Notebook Deity

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    Where'd you hear this?

    I'm greatly interested :D
     
    Waveblade, Aug 10, 2007
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  9. dellbert65

    dellbert65 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Especially for portables I would not necessarily recommend downgrading to XP. A whole host of things could be causing the HDD light to flicker, and its not really that accurate of HDD acitivity anyway. In addition to OS activities Dell quickset is also sending and receiving data constantly. I would check your CPU cycling and see whats using the cycles. More than likely its a services .dll doing its thing. HDD clicking is to be expected but the volume of the click should not be noticable with normal use.
     
    dellbert65, Aug 10, 2007
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  10. nicedream

    nicedream Notebook Guru

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    Why do you say it's not that accurate of an indicator of HDD activity?
     
    nicedream, Aug 11, 2007
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  11. tooz

    tooz Notebook Guru

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    I have Vista Premium and mine doesn't always blink... I have a 1520 as well. Right now as I'm looking at through this thread it isn't blinking.
     
    tooz, Aug 11, 2007
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