[gentoo-user] Hard drive activity indicator light

[gentoo-user] Hard drive activity indicator light

[John J. Foster]

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Good morning,

Something that's been bothering me, although not that much, for about 3
years now. I've never investigated, and perhaps the answer is simple,
but every distro I've used (RH9, FC1, FC2, Suse 9.1, and now Gentoo),
has not shown the tiny blinking drive activity indicator on the front of
my tower. This machine has always, until a few weeks ago when I finally
dumped it for good, dual-booted with XP. And XP always showed activity
via the light when there was activity. I would have thought that this
was actually a hardware signal, and not OS related. But it doesn't
appear that way. This is with a WD 36GB SATA drive on a ASUS A7N8X
deluxe mobo w/ onboard Silicon Image controller.

Any, and all, help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
John

-- 
Contrary to the lie machine, the world is not safer.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive activity indicator light

[Mark Knecht]

John,
   None of my Linux boxes with SATA drives (3 machines) show drive
activity via the LED. It seems to be some limitation of the Linux
drivers.

   The SATA bus is a different hardware interface from the EIDE
interface. My suspicion has been that the LED is hard wired into the
EIDE controller and probably has to be driven by extra commands
(somehow...) when using the SATA interface. Keep in mind that the EIDE
controller is in your chipset and the Silicon Image SATA controller is
a completely separate chip so what it's doing may or may not be
visible to the hardware that drives the LED.

   Anyway, a bit long winded but you are not alone. ;-)

Cheers,
Mark

On 8/19/05, John J. Foster <Gentoo-User@festus.150ml.com> wrote:
> Good morning,
> 
> Something that's been bothering me, although not that much, for about 3
> years now. I've never investigated, and perhaps the answer is simple,
> but every distro I've used (RH9, FC1, FC2, Suse 9.1, and now Gentoo),
> has not shown the tiny blinking drive activity indicator on the front of
> my tower. This machine has always, until a few weeks ago when I finally
> dumped it for good, dual-booted with XP. And XP always showed activity
> via the light when there was activity. I would have thought that this
> was actually a hardware signal, and not OS related. But it doesn't
> appear that way. This is with a WD 36GB SATA drive on a ASUS A7N8X
> deluxe mobo w/ onboard Silicon Image controller.
> 
> Any, and all, help is greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 
> --
> Contrary to the lie machine, the world is not safer.
> 
> 
>

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive activity indicator light

[Wade Brown]

You might want to check a few other options available to you.  Often
times, hard drives have a specific 2-pin LED connector on the drive
itself.  This is typically used for having one LED per drive instead
one LED per bus, and most commonly found in RAID solutions.  Being a
SATA drive, it's likely your drive has this connecter as well, and it
would be worth looking in your product specifications for.  Granted,
this solution means you only receive a blinking LED for the SATA drive
(all other devices are SOL), but it's at least one more option to
consider.

As a side note to Mark's comment, I'm not sure it's standard
specification.  I have a Biostar iDeq 220T, with on board SATA RAID,
and the access LED lights up fine for me in Gentoo with no cajoling to
speak of.  It seems more chipset specific than a standard
specification.

--
Wade Brown

On 8/19/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> John,
>    None of my Linux boxes with SATA drives (3 machines) show drive
> activity via the LED. It seems to be some limitation of the Linux
> drivers.
> 
>    The SATA bus is a different hardware interface from the EIDE
> interface. My suspicion has been that the LED is hard wired into the
> EIDE controller and probably has to be driven by extra commands
> (somehow...) when using the SATA interface. Keep in mind that the EIDE
> controller is in your chipset and the Silicon Image SATA controller is
> a completely separate chip so what it's doing may or may not be
> visible to the hardware that drives the LED.
> 
>    Anyway, a bit long winded but you are not alone. ;-)
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
> 
> On 8/19/05, John J. Foster <Gentoo-User@festus.150ml.com> wrote:
> > Good morning,
> >
> > Something that's been bothering me, although not that much, for about 3
> > years now. I've never investigated, and perhaps the answer is simple,
> > but every distro I've used (RH9, FC1, FC2, Suse 9.1, and now Gentoo),
> > has not shown the tiny blinking drive activity indicator on the front of
> > my tower. This machine has always, until a few weeks ago when I finally
> > dumped it for good, dual-booted with XP. And XP always showed activity
> > via the light when there was activity. I would have thought that this
> > was actually a hardware signal, and not OS related. But it doesn't
> > appear that way. This is with a WD 36GB SATA drive on a ASUS A7N8X
> > deluxe mobo w/ onboard Silicon Image controller.
> >
> > Any, and all, help is greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > John
> >
> > --
> > Contrary to the lie machine, the world is not safer.
> >
> >
> >
> 
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive activity indicator light

[Matt Randolph]

John -

I have a similar story to yours but it probably has nothing to do with 
your situation.  I will tell it anyway just in case it helps anyone.

Once upon a time, I had Windows on my computer.  All of the LEDs worked 
perfectly.

One day I upgraded my BIOS (in Windows) and rebooted into Linux.  I 
happily used my computer for some time until one day I noticed that none 
of my LEDs were working.  The reset button had stopped working too.

At first I thought I had a short or a faulty ground at the LEDs.  What 
else could possibly explain why they all stopped working at once?  In 
the course of trying to troubleshoot the problem, I reversed the pins of 
the LEDs and switch.  When I turned it back on, everything was working 
again.  The only thing I can think of that it could have been is the 
BIOS flash.  I don't remember if the LEDs worked in Windows after the 
BIOS flash but before reversing the pins.  Actually, I don't know if 
they work in Windows after reversing the pins either.  I find it hard to 
imagine how my problem could have been OS specific.

The moral of the story is that your motherboard manufacturer can (and 
mine did) reverse the polarity of the pins in BIOS between versions.  In 
my case they did this to all of the LEDs at once.  It might be possible, 
though I think it's quite unlikely, that it could happen to only one LED 
too.  It is easier for me to imagine this happening if the LED in 
question is the only one that uses a two pin-wide connector yet the MOBO 
provides three pins for it.

Since SATA support in Linux is still pretty green, I'm guessing that 
Mark and Wade are right and that your SATA chipset isn't perfectly 
supported yet.  However, if you flashed your BIOS at about the same time 
you punted Windows, that could be a clue.  Even if you didn't flash 
recently, if your HDD LED stays dark even when your IDE CDROM is active, 
you might try reversing the pins.

- Matt


Wade Brown wrote:

>You might want to check a few other options available to you.  Often
>times, hard drives have a specific 2-pin LED connector on the drive
>itself.  This is typically used for having one LED per drive instead
>one LED per bus, and most commonly found in RAID solutions.  Being a
>SATA drive, it's likely your drive has this connecter as well, and it
>would be worth looking in your product specifications for.  Granted,
>this solution means you only receive a blinking LED for the SATA drive
>(all other devices are SOL), but it's at least one more option to
>consider.
>
>As a side note to Mark's comment, I'm not sure it's standard
>specification.  I have a Biostar iDeq 220T, with on board SATA RAID,
>and the access LED lights up fine for me in Gentoo with no cajoling to
>speak of.  It seems more chipset specific than a standard
>specification.
>
>--
>Wade Brown
>
>On 8/19/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>John,
>>   None of my Linux boxes with SATA drives (3 machines) show drive
>>activity via the LED. It seems to be some limitation of the Linux
>>drivers.
>>
>>   The SATA bus is a different hardware interface from the EIDE
>>interface. My suspicion has been that the LED is hard wired into the
>>EIDE controller and probably has to be driven by extra commands
>>(somehow...) when using the SATA interface. Keep in mind that the EIDE
>>controller is in your chipset and the Silicon Image SATA controller is
>>a completely separate chip so what it's doing may or may not be
>>visible to the hardware that drives the LED.
>>
>>   Anyway, a bit long winded but you are not alone. ;-)
>>
>>Cheers,
>>Mark
>>
>>On 8/19/05, John J. Foster <Gentoo-User@festus.150ml.com> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Good morning,
>>>
>>>Something that's been bothering me, although not that much, for about 3
>>>years now. I've never investigated, and perhaps the answer is simple,
>>>but every distro I've used (RH9, FC1, FC2, Suse 9.1, and now Gentoo),
>>>has not shown the tiny blinking drive activity indicator on the front of
>>>my tower. This machine has always, until a few weeks ago when I finally
>>>dumped it for good, dual-booted with XP. And XP always showed activity
>>>via the light when there was activity. I would have thought that this
>>>was actually a hardware signal, and not OS related. But it doesn't
>>>appear that way. This is with a WD 36GB SATA drive on a ASUS A7N8X
>>>deluxe mobo w/ onboard Silicon Image controller.
>>>
>>>Any, and all, help is greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>John
>>>
>>>--
>>>Contrary to the lie machine, the world is not safer.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>--
>>gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>
-- 

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" - W. of O.

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