Hard Drive LED stays on

[ShaggyOne]

I custom built my system and have had it running smoothly for over a year now. I just installed a PNY GeForce4 ti4400 AGP card. So far the PC enjoys a spontaneous reboot and the hard drive LED stays on. I did not remove any of the IDE or LED cables to install the new video card. I can still access the hard drive. Everything seems like normal except the LED light and sporatic reboots. One time it did a reboot and wouldn't get much further than POST and it would reboot again.

I'm thinking maybe it is a power issue. I have a 300w Sparkle power supply. Anyone know of any utilities that check power throughput?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
ShaggyOne

 

[DaiShan]

sounds like psu to me as well, what board are you running though, what is your complete rundown?

 

[ShaggyOne]

It is an Asus CUSL-2, PIII 1ghz, 256 pc133 ram. One 52x CDrom and a 4x CDR. One PCI modem, Soundblaster Audigy gamer and a Linksys NIC. I have 3 usb devices but only one is running without it's own power supply.

Can anyone suggest a good psu?

thanks,
Shaggyone

 

[Dragnov]

Yeah sounds like a power supply problem. A 300w Sparkle should be more than enough to power your computer though especially since its a PIII... so I'm guessing it might have turned faulty. Enermax power supplies are good.. I forgot the other names of other good brands...

 

[Buz2b]

A faulty PS will not cause the HDD activity light to stay on so I'm not sure that this is your problem. However, you can get an ATX PS testor for as little as $10-15. All you do is plug the ATX power cord into it and it tells you if it is good or bad. Under normal circumstances I think that the Sparkle 300 watt should be fine for what you have. It may be that there is something running in the background or maybe the HDD is having a problem itself. How is the used vs free space on the drive? What OS are you using?

 

[Maggotry]

I'd put the original card back in and see if the problem goes away. I agree with Buz2b. I can't imagine a weak PSU causing the HD light to stay on. By what means is that even possible?

 

[ShaggyOne]

I put the old card in and got the same results (pretty crazy). I have a 400w Antec psu coming today.

I'm running Win98se with one 30gb hard drive partitioned into 3 10gb sections. All of them have half free. The hard drive acts fine. I'll do a thorough scandisk on it tonight.

I'm not sure what is happening but I believe that card was the cause of it. Maybe the card did something back to the mobo.

Thanks all,
ShaggyOne

 

[Buz2b]

You might try doing a Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the window that shows what is running and check the list carefully. Then try to close all but explore and systray and let it sit for a bit to see if the LED stays on. Another way would be to go into MSCONFIG from the Start-Run area and check off your startup items so that you load with nothing but the basics. Yet another way is to go into Safe Mode, then do the Ctrl-Alt-Del to check what, if anything is running there and recheck the HDD LED. Through those processes you should be able to track down what is causing the trouble (if it is software). The other path might be to open the case again and pull, then reinstall the plug for the HDD LED.
A couple of simple yet obvious items you might look for as far as software would be your anti-virus program constantly scanning and/or something on your network configuration.

 

[ShaggyOne]

Thanks for the ideas. Already tried. I run Explorer, Systray and ZoneAlarm only. I've tried shutting down ZA just to see.

MSconfig is very clean, nothing in the startup folder. Safe mode produces the same results. I'll try the LED pin idea.

Thanks,
Shaggyone

 

[nihil]

try taking out the plug and flipping it around 180 degrees. the wrong polarity will cause the led to stay on. i found this out after my parents brought their computer away to a "professional" and it came back with the hdd led blaring 24/7.

 

[ShaggyOne]

I'll give it a shot but the HD LED wire was never taken out. No wires where taken out. Ya never know!

Thanks,
Shaggyone

 

[Maggotry]

<< try taking out the plug and flipping it around 180 degrees. the wrong polarity will cause the led to stay on. i found this out after my parents brought their computer away to a "professional" and it came back with the hdd led blaring 24/7. >>


What case was that? PC LED's usually won't turn on at all if the polarity is wrong. Some LED's will light different colors being forward or reverse biased, but I've never seen one on a computer case.

 

[nihil]

<<

<< try taking out the plug and flipping it around 180 degrees. the wrong polarity will cause the led to stay on. i found this out after my parents brought their computer away to a "professional" and it came back with the hdd led blaring 24/7. >>




What case was that? PC LED's usually won't turn on at all if the polarity is wrong. Some LED's will light different colors being forward or reverse biased, but I've never seen one on a computer case. >>




a really ghetto one, that was also the first time i saw this....and the last. i should have used the words "in my case" (no pun intended...heh) as to not infer that this is always the issue.