Does HDD light ever go off?

I've had this for months, and that thing is always flickering. It's really annoying when I'm in a dark room, because it reflects on the screen. Is it really doing anything when it's just flickering once in a while? I don't think it is, as I've had my hard drive turn off after a period of non use, but the light never really stopped.

 

Hit Fn+F1 and the lights will shut off.

But generally no the HDD light will light up about once a second due to the amount of work Vista does in the back ground.

 

I always turn off all the lights when I power on the laptop, simply press FN+F1. I'm pretty sure that turns off the HDD light too but maybe someone can check.

The light flickers when either a read or a write is occuring. It is normal for the HDD activity light to be on or showing some activity (A frequent flash every few seconds) even when the pc is idle.

 

Fn + F1 is my automatic reflex also. Just remember Fn + F2 (I think) turns off WiFi and can be a mind bender if hit by mistake. Twice was enough for me to remember now - I hope.

 

Oh awesome! It works. I think I knew that and forgot at some point, because when you said it, I thought "duh". This will help with the reflection on this glossy screen.

 

On the P-6860FX, the HDD light will flicker if the HDD is operating, even if you use Fn-F1 to turn the lights off. The HDD will operate constantly in Vista for the first few minutes of operation simply because the OS is busy indexing and caching files. You can disable these services in the OS if you don't want them.

 

No i'm sitting with mine right now and i dont have any HD lights at all after i hit FN+F1. It turns all lights off including the power/plug blues up front.

And to test it i'm Downloading the new system tools and encoding a movie to DivX to get the HD working.

I'm not sure why yours would still come on... is there maybe a keyboard driver that controls the function of the fn+F1 that would give it added function?

 

My guess is that it would be a function of how the BIOS is programmed. What BIOS version are you using?

 

That might be true. I'm using the original .29 BIOS, i didnt need virtualization so i never updated to the newer ones

 

I don't think .29 is the original BIOS. The only BIOS I've found on Gateway's page is .28, which would seem to predate .29. Furthermore, I was not aware that Gateway developed any BIOS versions after .29.

I checked my machine, and I am using v. 94.29.00 which I assume is the same version you are using.

I did notice that the HDD would flicker a lot less after I hit Fn-F1, so I removed my flashdrive and tried it again -- same thing. I am running RAID 0, so it could be related to implementing RAID transfers. However, I don't particularly feel like dismantling my RAID array for verification...

 

Yeah it might be the RAID array. I'm just using 2 separate drives.

The .29 BIOS were the only ones shipped with the 6860. The .27 and .28 were 6831 BIOS (Gateway never updated after those for public use) But there is a .30 or .31 (cant remember the exact number) that e-wrecked has gotten from the BIOS company that enable VT and something else on our machines if we had CPU's capable of using it.

EDIT
it is the 94.31 BIOS
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=312605&highlight=BIOS

Unfortunately it doesn't give everything stated. It also doesn't allow for any more OC than 3.0gHz either so i never ended up trying it, sad really I'm running an x9000 @32-34 degrees at 3.0gHz and they still wont let me OC anymore... makes me a bit sad

 

Just a quick note..

I am running the original shipped BIOS from July of last year. After Fn-F1, I still have HD light (only) but not every time there is HD access. I can actually hear the drive access and see no light, then see light but hear no access. No optical disc in the drive either.

 

Weird... i never get the HD activity light when I Fn+F1

The only other thing i can think of is the SSD has something to do with it. Either its not registering the same as a mechanical drive, or the constant activity isnt registering because the speed of the drive (takes 0.3ms to preform a normal 4K write, so 0.4ms for access and write)

Or it might be Win7, its more efficent with its HD activity than Vista was so it might not preform as many back ground writes (i'll have to see if i can reinstall Vista to see if it makes a difference or if someone else has vista installed on a SSD with the 6860)

 

I have a similar problem Tybalt. The light only comes on every once in a while. It's so rare that I don't even pay attention to it.