Hard drive light flickering constantly?

Duis mollis, est non commodo luctus, nisi erat porttitor ligula, eget lacinia odio sem nec elit. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper. Donec ullamcorper nulla non metus auctor fringilla. Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur. Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Morbi leo risus, porta ac consectetur ac, vestibulum at eros. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis. Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Duis mollis, est non commodo luctus, nisi erat porttitor ligula, eget lacinia odio sem nec elit. Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum. Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis.

If you want to know about every activity running on your pc download AnVir Taskmanager. What you are seeing and experiencing is very normal behavior.

 

http://www.anvir.com/
Message Edited by Dieselman743 on 10-07-2008 08:19 PM

Hi

Dieselman743

So this would show why the hard drives light is flicking right,or what is using the hard drive.Thanks Diesel you must get sick of these questons.Appreciate your answer.

Cheers mo

Why would I get sick of helping people. Never. I enjoy educating people. I am a self taught pc guru. Hard drive light flickers for various reasons. Mine actually never flickers unless I am gaming. How much ram do you have? The less ram you have the more Windows needs to pull things off the hard drive to put it into ram. When is the last time you defragged?

Hi Dieselman743

My rams under a gig,but up until yesterday my hardrive would only flicker say when I'm going thru internet pages or when Norton doing a scan or if I'm using different parts of the computer.So that's why I'm curious to why its on a constant flicker every few seconds maybe a break of 5- 10 secs no matter if I'm on or off the net.I just checked the task manager and ctfmon is up and running but I know that should be normal as I'm typing.I have defragged only recently.But I have been going through the services and seeing what I actually use and trimming the ones I don't use.Don't know if that would affect anything.

Cheers Mo

Hello I have been watching mine since reading this question. Mine does it too, soft little flickers not a continuous, but like every fraction of a second. I have 3.00 GB of Ram

2 Likes

Your Ethernet light flickers because of activity. Your CPU light flickers because of activity. Rendering web pages may take a lot of CPU time for a computer with less than 1gb of ram. It is not caused by any malware, considering that you have NIS 2009 installed.

1 Like

Hi Tech0utsider

By rendering web pages do you mean changing the page say to look at another thread?or just the current page you are looking at?the light flickers when I'm not on the web,or when I'm sitting reading your replies.Its just more than it has been in the past.so that's why I'm putting the queston out there that,can your PC go from basically no flicking unless as I have said I'm changing from thread to thread,doing a scan,say clicking on control panel you see a brief burst of activity on the hard drive?hope I'm still making sense.

Cheers Mo


mo wrote:

 

I looked in my task manager and watched the CPU usage it mainly sits on 3% then would jump to 9-14% very briefly then back to 3%.


Launching Task Manager creates a burst in CPU activity, since it has to monitor, log, and present CPU, Memory, Network, Process, and Task information in a graphically pleasing way. 


mo wrote:

Hi Tech0utsider

By rendering web pages do you mean changing the page say to look at another thread?or just the current page you are looking at?the light flickers when I'm not on the web,or when I'm sitting reading your replies.Its just more than it has been in the past.so that's why I'm putting the queston out there that,can your PC go from basically no flicking unless as I have said I'm changing from thread to thread,doing a scan,say clicking on control panel you see a brief burst of activity on the hard drive?hope I'm still making sense.

Cheers Mo


 

I would not be worried, I never look at the CPU light and take it seriously...

 

Different CPU lights operate differently. Maybe yours is set to flicker at the slightest bit of CPU activity. Malware? Impossible. If you have XP SP2, then it is impossible to contract a serious infection. However, you can get a partial infection, like when Vundo invaded my system, creating an extra process but no advertising, wallpaper change, etc. That is where Norton steps in. 

1 Like

Thanks Tech0utsider

I think I will leave it at that.I feel half the time I'm chasing Rabbits and if you have ever dug out a rabbit warren to get a Rabbit then you know it may take a while to catch the darn thing so I might let this "Rabbit "go!!!:smileywink:Thanks for your help.I will put my time into enjoying the pc!

Cheers Mo

1 Like

You need to remember something mo. Even though you are not doing anything on your pc there are several back round tasks always running. Such as NIS looking for updates and applying them automaticly. Windows updates running. Several other services also run. Download the program I posted and you will get a better understanding of what is going on at any given time on your pc.Rendering a page simply means your cpu is processing all the ads and links abweb page features it needs to.

Message Edited by Dieselman743 on 10-08-2008 06:36 PM

1 Like

Hi Dieselman

Thanks takes awhile to get used to this "unseen activity".

Cheers Mo

How long have you had a pc? This activtity has been going on for years in the back round.

1 Like

Hi Dieselman

Only since about February this year so hence all the questions on the basics,and why I'm so cautious about putting extra stuff on my PC because if it goes wrong I won't know what to do and have a little freak out session:smileyvery-happy:

Cheers Mo

I didn't think there was anything such thing as a CPU LED on the computer. The topic is the HardDrive indicator.

 

The HardDrive is almost constantly being referred to.  My own indicator blinks at least once a second even when I am doing almost nothing.  The thing is, most computers (and especially those engaged in any sort of multitasking) are using a lot more memory than that provided by RAM.  The harddrive is functioning as a sort of virtual RAM (rather than vice-versa) and it is constantly being swapped out to create space for new program activity and to clear the space no longer in use.  The less RAM, the more HD activity.  And even if your computer is sitting there communing with nature, there will harddrive activity, because NIS is going to use that idle time to scan and what do you think it's scanning?  It's scanning files on your HD!  And every file scanned means harddrive activity.  The faster the scans the more your LED will blink (I imagine).

 

So without any other indicators of malware, I wouldn't worry.

Message Edited by mijcar on 10-08-2008 08:11 PM

If your really parinoid about your pc the simply get Reutnil. If something happens simply reboot and your back to normal.

 

http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/

 

And if you want to try something without actually installing it then use Sandboxie which is what I use.

 

http://www.sandboxie.com/

 

I have owned a pc for alteast 10 years and counting. I have built 4 of my own machines. 3 of which are gaming machines.