Hard Drive LED
Thursday, January 19, 2012 by kona0197 | Discussion: Personal Computing
Just curious if it's normal for a computer running Windows 7 Home Premium to keep accessing the hard drive every other second. My HDD LED light lights up every other second, the hard drive never seems to rest. No unusual background programs running, I have my auto-defrag programs and A/V scans turned off. Just wondering if I should be worried. Thanks!
Reply #2 Thursday, January 19, 2012 11:04 AM
Is search indexing set to 'active' in windows, Kona?
That's just one thing that would keep yer led blinkin'...
Reply #6 Thursday, January 19, 2012 12:06 PM
G'day RND
Hope all's good with you & yours..
Sorry to hijack your thread a little, Kona - so hi to everybuddy who'd thunk I was m.i.a. ~I'm here but just don't post a lot anymore.
I work crazy hours in my real job, but I still love this place ...and the people who make it nice to stay around.
Reply #7 Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:17 PM
I don't know where to find out if search indexing is on or off. Is there a benefit to keeping it on?
Reply #9 Thursday, January 19, 2012 5:44 PM
Kona, if you search "search" from the start menu and then select change how windows searches, it should take you to a place where you can find out what you need to know. I really didn't look much further into it, I just searched "search" because Erk mentioned search indexing........
BTW..........
Hello Erk!
....okay, now back to lurking........
Reply #11 Thursday, January 19, 2012 6:07 PM
Reply #12 Thursday, January 19, 2012 7:04 PM
Turns out that indexing is turned off on my drive, or it says indexing is complete. Yet that LED still blinks on and off every other second. I looked into task manager, no services are using the system to that extend to explain it.
Reply #14 Friday, January 20, 2012 2:12 AM
I disabled the service. The LED is still going nuts. Any other ideas?
Reply #15 Friday, January 20, 2012 7:23 AM
It is perfectly normal for the LED light to blink occasionally, at random intervals. There are things in an OS that you just cannot see or control that are important to the operations of that OS. If it is always a constant light, going on and of almost continuously all the time, then other factors may be involved, but as to what those may be could vary, like a defrag program running, or unfortunately even a system Trojan or virus.
Reply #16 Friday, January 20, 2012 6:11 PM
Lightstar - it is a continuous on and off light every other second. I have no scanners running and all virus and malware scans I have run say I am clean.
Reply #17 Friday, January 20, 2012 9:13 PM
Nothing to worry about. It's just a RPM gauge for the hamster wheel.
Reply #19 Saturday, January 21, 2012 8:32 AM
Mine blinks almost every second too Kona, sometimes quicker and brighter occasionally too even when I am not doing anything, but I do not worry about it. Probably just a service the OS needs to run that you cannot control.
Reply #20 Saturday, January 21, 2012 8:42 AM
Is this keeping you up at night?
Tip: The light will go out if you turn the computer off.
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!







Reply #1 Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:17 AM
Well, now that you made me stare at my computer for 60 seconds, I can say it looks normal to me. The light on my rig blinks with varying intensity and speed. Very pretty blue. ("MS-We never sleep")
Should you be worried? YES. You're supposed to be looking at the monitor, not the tower!