The HD led flashes at a 4 HZ pace - why dies it ?

[R.Wieser]

Hello All,

I've noticed a number of times that the HD-activity led of my XPsp3 computer
flashes continuously in an about 4 HZ rhythm, and today I decided to ask:
What is accessing my HD that way ? Is it really needed ? This way the HD
will never go into its suspended/sleep mode.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

 

[JJ]

Hello All,

I've noticed a number of times that the HD-activity led of my XPsp3 computer
flashes continuously in an about 4 HZ rhythm, and today I decided to ask:
What is accessing my HD that way ? Is it really needed ? This way the HD
will never go into its suspended/sleep mode.

Try logging the disk access using Process Monitor before going into
suspend/sleep mode. Use advanced output mode if you want all the details
(mostly kernel-mode accesses).

 

[R.Wieser]

Hello Ron,

Some DVD drives hit the bus at that rate and it flashes the HD light.

Even when the drive is not in use by me (no DVD in it) ? Odd.

Dell latitude laptops all do it, anyway.

I forgot to mentuion the type of PC it happens on, its a small tower
version.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:

 

[BillW50]

On 2/11/2014 1:04 PM, R.Wieser wrote:> Hello Ron,

Even when the drive is not in use by me (no DVD in it) ? Odd.


I forgot to mentuion the type of PC it happens on, its a small tower
version.

I have been following this thread and I haven't found anything that I
really disagree with. But I do still have some commends and questions.

First of all, how do you know this activity is preventing sleep?
Regardless for the sake of argument, some activity doesn't affect the
timeout timers.

Secondly, many years ago I had an odd file being created in a folder
that I was watching for something. Being curious and not knowing who or
what was creating this file, I found a disk write utility. It wasn't one
that I could use for one folder, but monitors everything. Okay, I
figured good enough, how many things could Windows write to in a few
minutes anyway?

So running this utility, like 10 writes per second was happening while
Windows was idle. Whoa! I can't keep up with that so I found an option
to log this. So just running it a few minutes, I stopped it and there
was hundreds of writes in the log with what file, path, what created it,
etc. The mass majority of them were changes to the Windows registry. I
was shocked!

Nothing very big or anything, but just tiny few byte changes. Count down
timers? Who knows, but there were tons of them. Most Windows machines
cache writes in a buffer and waits until it is a good time to write to
the drive.

Anyway some things count as far as the count down timers go and some
things doesn't. If they don't, then it isn't going to affect them, now
is it?

 

[R.Wieser]

Hello BillW50,

First of all, how do you know this activity is preventing sleep?

I don't. Other than that I do not hear anything spinning up or experience
any delays when I use the computer after it being inactive for a period of
time.

The mass majority of them were changes to the Windows registry.

I could accept that when I'm working on the computer. But when it has been
inactive for a period of 30+ minutes I would assume it has long since
finished flushed all changes to the registry.

The only thing I can really think of is a misbehaving program somewhere.
Although ... Most diskwrites/reads are buffered by the OS, so actual disk
access should be minimal.

But before going on a hunt for it I thought I would spare me some time and
check here if it was a known issue. It looks like it isn't.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:

 

[Cash]

Hello All,

I've noticed a number of times that the HD-activity led of my XPsp3
computer flashes continuously in an about 4 HZ rhythm, and today I
decided to ask: What is accessing my HD that way ? Is it really
needed ? This way the HD will never go into its suspended/sleep mode.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Are you allowing the hard drive to index all your files? If you are, then
that *MAY* be your perceived problem - and this can be stopped by unchecking
the Allow Indexing Service.... box on the C drive.

 

[BillW50]

Hello BillW50,


I don't. Other than that I do not hear anything spinning up or experience
any delays when I use the computer after it being inactive for a period of
time.

Oh the deeper you dig, the more you find tons of things are still
happening in the background.

I could accept that when I'm working on the computer. But when it has been
inactive for a period of 30+ minutes I would assume it has long since
finished flushed all changes to the registry.

I too thought that. But some things change like timers and such. I was
shocked how much things get changed in the registry when the computer
just sits there doing nothing.

The only thing I can really think of is a misbehaving program somewhere.
Although ... Most diskwrites/reads are buffered by the OS, so actual disk
access should be minimal.

But before going on a hunt for it I thought I would spare me some time and
check here if it was a known issue. It looks like it isn't.

Two huge things stop Windows from sleeping, that is keyboard access and
mouse movement. The third thing is media players. Although some of them
can toggle this feature on or off. Aside from the big three, anything
else is a bit iffy. As a programmer can always keep the sleep timer from
sleeping (it isn't hard). Although I would think even if you had a
little bit of disk activity from another source, it probably isn't going
to matter to the sleep timer. There is always the exception of course,
but we can talk about that at another time.

 

[R.Wieser]

Hello Cash,

Are you allowing the hard drive to index all your files?
Nope.

and this can be stopped by unchecking the
Allow Indexing Service.... box on the C drive.

Another, arguably better way is to simply disable the service altogether
(which than includes *all* drives on or attached to the 'puter, including
removables like USB sticks) under administrative tools -> services.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message: