Hard drive led work with Sata drive?

[wseyller]

According to my motherboard the connector for the hard drive light is for IDE hard drives. Anyway to get the led to work with sata drives

 

[jeece]

Meh, mine too says that, but the IDE led actually flashes upon S-ATA activity. I guess it's just a convention to name it IDE activity led.

Have you actually tried it?

 

[dbdynsty25]

Mine light up as well...I've only got SATA drives.

 

[wseyller]

no it doesn't work, guess I will check my connector make sure its connected right. I have the asus k8v deluxe using 2 raptors in raid.

Actually the HD light stays on (no flashing) once powered up.
Probably connected wrong.

But here's a quote from my manual even though I would think they would of though of the fact that sata drives may be in use and not ones connected to the ide controller.

From manual: Hard Disk Activity Lead(2-pin IDE_LED)
This 2-pin connector is for the HDD LED cable. The read or write activities of the device connected to any of the IDE connectors cause the IDE LED to light up.

 

[wseyller]

I rechecked my connector for the harddrive led. As it was before I posted, the light would come on as soon as I powered up and stayed steady(no blinking at all) until I powered down. The 2 pin connector used wire color red and white. The red was on the positive lead and the white was on the ground pin.

I tried to reverse the connector and of course the led would not work at all. I assumed this would happen since the led is a diode and it was lit previously.

I got it connected right, anyone know why its not working properly with the sata drives. Anyone else that has my motherboard with sata drives that the led is working properly or not?

 

[jeece]

Meh, looks like I had the same "problem" with my old Asus board. It caused the ram catching fire throwing sparks all accross the case... just kidding! Nah, really, I had the same LED issue, and since it's an Asus too (A7V133), then maybe it's the same setup. Here goes nothing:

First, check out how my Asus board is wired.

In the first frame, there's an IDELED connector. Kinda obvious. If I happen to plug my IDE led into this very socket, light goes on and stays on. I have to wire it to the OTHER (pic #2) IDELED pins... Works fine this way. It actually took some time and observation before I found the right connector, and it was all luck.

I dunno how your board is made, however, I tried and looked at some pics of the K8V Deluxe, I couldn't really see if there's a 2nd IDE connector... Just look around.

 

[wseyller]

I contacted Asus tech support about this to find out what the deal is.


[Problem Description]
I have sata drives, I have a hard drive activity led on my case. The led in connected to the IDE hd
activity led. LED stays on constant with power on.! Is it possible to monitor sata activity with this
motherboard.

Dear Customer :
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.
My name is Eric and I would be assisting you today. About the request which you referred in your last mail, currently it's just a design limitation . Our RD just design one for IDE device . Never mind, i will feedback this info to our RD Dept, any info updated, you will be informed at the first time.

Thank you for using ASUS products and services!

Eric_Xu
ASUS Customer Service Center (Shanghai)

 

[davegraham]

hm...that's funny....my K8V Deluxe works just fine and dandy with SATA drives.

cheers,

dave

 

[wseyller]

My sata drives work too, but does your Hard drive activity led on your ATX case work correctly as in a blinking led corresponding to sata activity. My LED just stays on constant.

 

[davegraham]

err...i'm a retard...given my last reply, of course SATA drives work...

from everything i can tell, my K8V does allow my SATA drives to utilize the HDD led....since all my games are located on my SATA drives, i use them quite heavily and can definitely tell when they're being used...

*sigh* it's getting late.

cheers,

dave

 

[yadda]

Damnit I was wondering the same thing after just building a new box in the last 2 weeks. I have 2 SATA drives in it and no HD lights for me. I have an Asus P4P800 E deluxe.

Y

 

[JBT]

I have a Asus mobo and an SATA drive. Sometimes it works correctly and flashes during activity. But ussually it is solid on and will get even a little bit brightier when I access the HDD. Its kinda annoying cause I like the activity lights but its not a BIG deal to me.

 

[wseyller]

One other possibility I have which is pretty cool is that I have a matrix orbital LCD. I bought this optional indicator LED bus that connects to the LCD. It has three leds which I mounted on a 3.5" external drive bay cover. This hardware works using software and there is a possibility is the near future due to software and plugin upgrade that I could use it to create an event to make an led show activity for any volume created on any physical drive. Right now I use one led to blink when I got email, and another strobes when I lose my internet connection.

 

[Sonic587]

Originally posted by: yadda
Damnit I was wondering the same thing. I have 1 SATA drives in it and no HD lights for me. I have an Albatron KX18D PROII.

Modified for my situation.

 

[jm9239]

i'm having this same problem with an MSI K8N and an antec sonata.

have a 120GB SATA with the OS and a 2nd 120GB IDE drive for storage and the hdd activity light stays on all the time.

 

[ericxw]

I just got a K8V board a few days ago.........I have no HD LED either.

the LED lights up for a split second on bootup and shut down and that's it.

I'm using two SATA drives from Seagate in raid0 config.

Feels weird without that LED.

Any help would be appeciated.

 

[Raspewtin]

I have the A8v with the same problem - I looked in the manual and it says specifically IDE LED and not hard drive LED. I guess I will use a software taskbar indicator. I found two programs but none I like yet.

 

[blakeatwork]

Mine do...

Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2

Anytime I queue a disc for information, the bright red LED comes on...

 

[Boss358]

I too have the Same problem with my K8V SE Deluxe running a WD 74GB Raptor SATA, Though i cannot talk to anyone at ASUS because they say they are busy and will call or email. Well after 3 weeks of emails to them and over 40 phone calls ...I have yet to hear from them..... The Last call i made i informed the idiot at the other end of the line he was a Frickin Liar and they had no intention of calling or emailing, In fact i gave him all the case numbers i have been given over the last three weeks and would you believe that they had no record of any of them or my phone calls. ASUS customer support SUCKS!!! Any one else know of a way of contacting them.

 

[Boss358]

Well after a very stern conversation with the ASUS Idiot, i was informed that the HDD LED does not work with SATA drives only IDE so thats what you get with getting the latest Stuff. NO SUPPORT

 

[boshuter]

That's pretty strange that they won't work. I've always used ASUS and in the last 4 I've owned (P4PE, P4G8X, P4P800 Dlx, P4C800E Dlx) all had scsi and ide hdd's. My hdd led has worked for the scsi and the ide. I don't understand why it wouldn't be designed into all of their boards

 

[Algere]

It's a known problem that if you have SATA drives connected to the VIA SATA controller that it won't indicate HD activity via blinking lights. If you want blinking HD activity lights for your SATA drives, connect it to the Promise controller.

 

[JaRb0y]

SATA doesnt have a special signal pin that designates activity LED like IDE does. The activity LED is handled by the SATA controller, versus IDE where it is handled by the drive itself. Like Algere said you have to connect the LED to the controller if it offers it. Some controllers don't.

Maxtor's MaxLine III and DiamondMax 10 have a special pin (pin 11) for the activity LED without the aid of a controller. Attach an LED to this pin and you've got an activity LED.

SATA's initial spec didn't accunt for activity LED, but reserved pin 11 for it. For SATA I phase 2, the spec includes an activity LED on the drive itself, so future SATA drives should have this feature.