Hard Drive LED on continuously

[Guest]

I'm not sure this is a Windows problem, but my mainboard Tech people (ECS)
said that there is a program running in the background, and to check with
Windows people. I checked Task Manager, and nothing unusual is running in
the background. The HD seems to be working just fine.
Beginning yesterday, my HDD LED came on steady, anytime the computer is on.
The hard drive seems to be operating normally, so I thought it was a chipset
problem.
I reinstalled both IDE channels and reinstalled the chipset driver with no
luck. I posted this on the VIA newsgroup, and no one there had an answer. I
have a Maxtor 6Y120P0 HD as Master on the Sec IDE channel, and 2 optical
drives as master and slave on the Pri channel. Before you ask, it's a VIA
VT8237 chipset thing. Optical drives will not work in UDMA mode on the Sec
IDE channel. Set up this way, everything works fine in UDMA.
Has anyone seen this problem before, and is there any way to get the LED
back to normal operation?
Thanks. Bill.

My System:

ECS PT800CE-A Mobo BIOS 1.1E (latest)
P4 3.0G CPU 800FSB (hyperthreading active)
Windows XP Pro SP2
RAM 1 Gig (2X512) DDR400
Chipset VIA VT8237 4 in 1 driver v 4.1.100.1332
HD Maxtor 6Y120P0 120G 7200 RPM Sec IDE Master
Optical Drives AOpen DUW 1608/ARR Pri IDE Master// Plextor PX-716A Pri
IDE Slave
IDE Drivers Microsoft 5.1.2600.2180
VIA Bus Master IDE Controller installed
Video Card NVidia FX5200 53.03 driver (best for Links 2003)
Sound Card Soundblaster Live Value

 

[John Wunderlich]

Beginning yesterday, my HDD LED came on steady, anytime the
computer is on. The hard drive seems to be operating normally, so
I thought it was a chipset problem.

Is the light on steadily even before Windows boots from the drive?
(if you interrupt the boot and go into BIOS settings, is light on?)
If so, then it isn't a Windows problem and is either a mobo problem or
perhaps a wire to the light has come detacted from the mobo (and is
hitting another pin) or one of the indicator light wires is connected
to the wrong mobo pin.

HTH,
John

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Billy

What are your anti-virus and anti-spyware arrangements?


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Is the light on steadily even before Windows boots from the drive?
(if you interrupt the boot and go into BIOS settings, is light on?)
If so, then it isn't a Windows problem and is either a mobo problem or
perhaps a wire to the light has come detacted from the mobo (and is
hitting another pin) or one of the indicator light wires is connected
to the wrong mobo pin.

HTH,
John

John:
Thanks for the reply. The light comes on as soon as I press the power
switch on the computer, and stays on constantly as long as there is power to
the computer. I checked the wiring, and can't find any problem there. I
think it's something to do with the chipset, but ECS keeps coming back saying
it's "Operating System Related". Lot of help that is. I have a spare Hard
Drive that I keep a complete copy of my regular HD on. I updated that HD
before this started, so if there were any software problems, they would not
be on that HD. I hooked it up and booted the computer, and the light came on
steady as it has been doing.
I'm going back to ECS again, but I don't forsee any help there.
I don't know for sure whether the LED is turned on and off by removing the
voltage (pos side) or by removing the ground (neg side). I did a continuity
check on the ground, and it's there constantly on the mobo, but not on the
LED cable, so there's no short after the mobo pin. The positive pin
obviously has voltage all the time or the light wouldn't be on. There aren't
any shorts in the positive side, or my power supply would let me know for
sure.
Anyway, thanks for the response. If you can think of anything else, I would
appreciate hearing from you.
Bill.

 

[Guest]

Billy

What are your anti-virus and anti-spyware arrangements?

Hope this helps.

Gerry

~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Gerry:

I have AVG 7 (Pro) for anti-virus. I use the Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta
program, coupled with Spybot and Ad-Aware. I have AVG set up to run a scan
every day, and the Anti-Spyware I do manually every 3 or 4 days. I have
Microsoft and Spybot set up to do dynamic blocking of bad pages, spyware etc.
All of this was up and running long before I developed the LED problem.
Is there a conflict somewhere here that might cause the problem?
Thanks for the response. Hope you can come up with something. I'm out of
ideas.
Bill.

 

[John Wunderlich]

Thanks for the reply. The light comes on as soon as I press the
power switch on the computer, and stays on constantly as long as
there is power to the computer. I checked the wiring, and can't
find any problem there. I think it's something to do with the
chipset, but ECS keeps coming back saying it's "Operating System
Related". Lot of help that is.

It has to be a mobo problem. Try removing the hard drive entirely and
see if it comes on. If it does, it simply *can't* be the OS because
the OS boots from the hard drive...

It's probably just a burned-out LED driver somewhere.

Good Luck,
John

 

[Guest]

I had a virus, cant remember the name exactly that caused my HD led to
stay on all the time, among other things. Was really nasty because
while I could see it in task manager and shut it down it would
instantly come right back. It embedded itself in EXPLORER.EXE and
couldn't be shut down unless you shut down explorer.exe etc. I reformatted and everything is back the way it should be (no HD light
etc.) I would look for a virus that has a hidden prog running in the
background sucking up your processor.
LoX343

Well, you might not believe this one. I accidently found that it was my
AOpen DUW 1608/ARR DVD burner that was causing the problem. If I power up
the computer, the HDD light comes on steady. All I have to do is open the
drawer on the AOpen drive, and the light will go immediately to normal
operation. It will stay that way until I reboot, then I have to open the
drawer again. I have an LG CD-ROM drive that was just sitting here doing
nothing, so I put it in place of the AOpen. The HDD light works great with
the LG and Plextor drives. I put a querie in to the AOpen tech support
people about this one, but haven't heard back from them yet. So, if anyone
else finds their HDD light comes on steady, try operating all the other
drives in the computer.
Thanks to everyone for the responses.
Bill.