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Computer Problem

Started by DouginUtah, December 26, 2008, 11:09:51 PM

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DouginUtah


I know there are a few computer geeks here so here is my story.

I built a new computer last week. Made a few mistakes. Learned a few things. I'll report on them below.

Now I have a problem as follows:
I have the following stuff:
ASUS Mobo P5Q Plus
Intel 2.5 GHz, E5200 CPU
Seagate Barracuda 250 GB HD (SATA)
LG GH22LS30 DVD burner (SATA)
XP Pro
The burner was added after I found out the drive I installed was just a CD burner. Duh! (Just thought of an unrelated question. I had the audio cable hooked to my mobo from the CD drive. The SATA drive doesn't have any place to hook up an audio cable. Is it done through the SATA cable?)

I don't really know when it started (maybe as soon as I installed it—I didn't notice it until later) but the HD access light began flashing about once a second.  Clever fellow that I am, I disconnected the SATA cable to the DVR and the HD light stopped blinking.

So I went looking in Google. I find that I am not the first to experience this problem. After sifting through many irrelevant answers (the computer has never been connected to the internet and it is not indexing files, etc.) I was left with disable auto-detection since XP is polling the drive to see if a disk has been inserted. That doesn't sound like a good solution to me.

Here is one forum reply that I haven't tried yet:
"As for the LED flashing anyway, just check that DMA is enabled for the CDRW drive. If it is running in PIO mode the CPU is responsible for all IO for the drive and can cause this. It can be one of the causes of this effect on DVD rom drives."

Here is what the LG chat tech said. Haven't tried this yet either.
"Chris: Have you checked your BIOS to check to see what your RAID settings are set at?
Harold Sherwin: I'm not using RAID.
Chris: Sometimes a computer will try to setup multiple Sata components with a RAID.
Chris: If it automatically does that, that can cause an issue with the hard drive."

Summarizing, there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer for this problem, that I can find.

Okay, a couple of things I learned.
Don't ever buy High Density memory. It'd cheaper but it ain't good.
XP (32-bit) will only recognize about 3.5 GB of memory even if you have 4 GB installed.
When ordering from Newegg make sure the rebate date is effective on the day you are ordering—even though the Newegg item description lists it as having a rebate.

Santa was good to me. After plodding along with AutoCAD LT 2000 I now have LT 2009. AutoDesk lists it at $1200 but Newegg discounts it to $899 and AutoDesk has a $200 rebate. And Monday I get my new HP OfficeJet K8600—Super B size (13X19 plots).

Any help with the flashing HD light would be greatly appreciated.  ;D
-Doug
When you hang around with good people, good things happen. -Darrell Waltrip

There is no need to say 'unleaded regular gas'. It's all unleaded. Just say 'regular gas'. It's not the 70s anymore. (At least that's what my wife tells me.)

---

Paul_H

Doug,

a piece of black electricians tape,stategically placed over the flashing HD light will make it all go away.


no_no No,don't try to thank me,that's what friends are for 


;D
Science isn't meant to be trusted it's to be tested

Ianab

Quote from: Paul_H on December 26, 2008, 11:36:24 PM
Doug,

a piece of black electricians tape,stategically placed over the flashing HD light will make it all go away.


no_no No,don't try to thank me,that's what friends are for 


;D

Complete bush mechanic  ::)

A real techie would disconnect the LED's cable from the motherboard  ;D

Sorry I cant actually give you a real solution. Microsoft would call it an 'undocumented feature'

But yes the modern drives just play audio directly via the data cable and the PCs sound generator chip. Some of the later model PATA drives didn't have seperate audio either.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Warbird


I'd try the DMA solution first.  Incorrect settings there can mess up other stuff.

Disabling hardware auto detection can speed up boot time.  It should be easy enough to disable it, just to see if that addresses the issue you are having.  You can re-enable it, if it doesn't fix your problem.

Checking the RAID settings seems like a long shot but I suppose if the BIOS is set for RAID and you aren't running it, it might be stupid enough to still be trying to do something.  Does the hard drive light blink like this only after the OS has loaded, or does it start as soon as you power up the system?  Are you familiar with how to get into the BIOS at startup?

Not sure on the sound cable question.

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