HD LED Always On??
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:16 pm
Got a 120GB Maxtor and the HD LED is staying on non-stop.. Any ides? doesn't really bother me.. But I'm curious as to why it's doing this.. eGo
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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:48 pm
that is normally from having the case hd led cable on backwards...but i'm assuming you only swapped drives and didn't touch the case stuff.
Assumptions Correct..
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:58 pm
But, hey, anything's possible.. *walks over there and checks* Nope.. Switched it around and it just stays off.. Me thinks it could be on the wrong posts.. Off to dig up the manual.. But it was working properly before.. lol.. eGo
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:42 am
First off if the HD LED is connected backwards it will NEVER light. LEDs are polarity dependent.
If it stays lit (and assuming it's connected to the right header pins) then that means that the hard drive controller is continously processing data.
Not a good thing as it probably steals some CPU time and degrades the HDD subsystem performance.
I've seen this happen when there's a device that doesn't co-exist with another device on the same port. Specifically I've seen this often with IDE zip drives connected on the same IDE port as your hard drive.
Some hard drives (especially the fancier 8Mb cache variety) are fussy about what they share the IDE port with. Sometimes they don't like ATAPI devices (like Zip drives and certain CD Roms).
If there's anything on the same port as the HDD then disconenct it and see if it clears up. If so, move the device to the other IDE port.
Hope this helps...
If it stays lit (and assuming it's connected to the right header pins) then that means that the hard drive controller is continously processing data.
Not a good thing as it probably steals some CPU time and degrades the HDD subsystem performance.
I've seen this happen when there's a device that doesn't co-exist with another device on the same port. Specifically I've seen this often with IDE zip drives connected on the same IDE port as your hard drive.
Some hard drives (especially the fancier 8Mb cache variety) are fussy about what they share the IDE port with. Sometimes they don't like ATAPI devices (like Zip drives and certain CD Roms).
If there's anything on the same port as the HDD then disconenct it and see if it clears up. If so, move the device to the other IDE port.
Hope this helps...
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 7:54 am
hmmm...maybe i was mixing up floppy drives and a hd led cable for some reason. 
they ARE so similar...right?
sorry eGo!
they ARE so similar...right? sorry eGo!
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:23 am
Yes, if you reverse the orientation of a floppy ribbon cable, the floppy's drive light will remain on (the drive also continously runs even with no floppy in it).
That could be it..
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:24 am
Thanks FP, I hadn't thought about that. But I had recently hooked up a Lite-On burner to the same IDE channel as this HD so I will try putting the lite-on on it's own cable tonight when I get home. eGo
Problem Solved..
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 1:10 am
Thanx FP.. I actually had that flaky DVD Rom hooked up to it.. So rack up another part for the PCA2K4 bonfire. 
eGo
eGo