XPS 630 HDD LED blinking all the time

When I receive my XPS 630 in the coming days, I will inspect it for the Fan and Light issues, then post my findings on this forum.

On another note/rant, I am a strong advocate AGAINST the use of Anti-Virus/Security/Firewall *Software* running on a user's computer; it is bloat-ware, intrusive, slow, system draining and causes more issues then it solves. I am not surprised to see a few blinking light issues caused by some AV software.  

I am, however, a strong advocate FOR Hardware/Network based scanning between a PC and the the Internet/Network. There are some solutions for Home Users that have come down in price recently.

Having worked in the PC/Network Security Field, I have learned 'best practices' to using a Computer responsibly, stopping unneeded services, and opposed to most anything that "Auto-runs". Running under a restricted account goes a long way as well.

Most of the blame rests on the users, they treat computer's with this 'wide-open-trusting' attitude when on the internet. They will buy car alarms, house alarms, dead bolts, lock their cars and look both ways before crossing the street.....but put them in front of a computer.....anything goes!

WHEW! I feel better :smileyvery-happy:

Rant over!

Uhm, what was my original point? Oh yeah! I'll post my findings when I get my XPS 630!! 

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@NoPumpGas wrote:

Having worked in the PC/Network Security Field, I have learned 'best practices' to using a Computer responsibly, stopping unneeded services, and opposed to most anything that "Auto-runs". Running under a restricted account goes a long way as well.

 

Most of the blame rests on the users, they treat computer's with this 'wide-open-trusting' attitude when on the internet. They will buy car alarms, house alarms, dead bolts, lock their cars and look both ways before crossing the street.....but put them in front of a computer.....anything goes!

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NoPumpGas, I have to say I take a bit of offense to your statement. It assumes that the users posting on the forums here are not well informed computer users, something that is clearly not accurate after reading through the posts here. I for one do not run anti-virus/firewall/security software and do use hardware for my security needs, have my network "stealthed" for the internet, I turn off indexing, don't do background defrags, etc. I also do my research as to what programs and services can be shutdown. I absolutely hate programs that assume I want them running all the time, adobe acrobat:smileymad:, to save me a few seconds of launch time for the few times I use it in a month. While I agree your statement may hold true for the average computer user that thinks the computer is an e-mail/web browsing device to say so here is disrespectful, but I'm sure unintended, to those of us trying to get a resolution to the 630 problems.

All that aside, welcome to the forums. I hope your 630 has no issues and runs like greased lightning.:smileyhappy:

Drange,

Thanks for the feedback. While there may be a legit issue with the blinking light, I also see a common thread with allot of users reporting add-on software *utilities* as contributing factors. With so much running; AV/Defrag/Indexing/...and so on...it's not surprising the HD never gets to have 'a break' from time to time. And what about playing music? Which allot of people do, I know if iTunes is running in the background the HD light flickers constantly as it access the songs.

As for my *rant*, don't take it 'to heart', it was not directed specifically towards this forum. My background in Security has accumulated allot of emotional baggage that causes me to abruptly vent without warning, and at no one in particular. Another issue is an industry cash-cow that preys on people and their fears.....:smileytongue:.....oops there I go again!

Anyway, I'll hope for the best and report back my XPS findings.  

Drange and NoPumpGas...while I'm no computer newbie, I am pretty green in the area of internet security. With my new XPS i got McAfee which runs relatively transparent (I assume the quad processor helps with that), but I'm very interested in some of the hardware/non-software solutions you mentioned. I don't want to take this thread off topic, but would you guys be able to message me at your convenience with what you guys use...or even just point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance!

Dave

NoPumpGas,

I completely understand the emotional baggage problem. I can't even begin to count how many systems I've had to "scrub" clean of spyware, viruses and alleged security software. I agree 100% about the money hungry industry that has grown rampantly professing to save us all from the evils of the internet. Sadly, too many people don't bother to do a tiny bit of research to see if they really need another security suite that's probably just spyware in disguise anyway. It also seems every program now has to do a dozen different things. I used to love Zonealarm back when it was just freeware and even bought it when it wasn't anymore, but now it's a pile of system crippling bloatware, IMO, and they aren't the only ones like that now. I long for the days you could buy a program for a specific purpose and that's all it would do and do it well.

Guess we should let folks get back to their regularly scheduled HDD LED problems...

nicedaveus

sent you a private message with a link. 

everyone is going to ask got the link,

is their any chance you you just post it for everyone.

thanks

Dell_Chris_M wrote:

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I do know that the operating system is part of the problem - the blinking LED is a normal behavior, when autorun, indexing, scandisk, rolling defrag, antivirus software, memory paging, write cache commit, and more are running in the background processes.

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     My hdd light never constantly blinked on me before at idle with the software I have on this 630i. I had WinXP on that Dell rig also. When did we implement this new strategy? Can't Ya'll unimplement it so that the light stops blinking?

     On a similar topic. What Dell Downloads are for my system for the NVidea stuff? I recall one of Chris' posts having Links to them, but I can't find the post anymore. 1) When Dell updates driver files for download, do they send them to a different directory/path on install? I recall the post as citing an order for the install of the updates as well. 2) What Nvidea ESA entries should I see in "Add/Remove programs" in windowsXP pro control panel? I've heard them described in forums but they were not called what appear in "add/remove programs list. I have only had 3 listed ever. 3) Which should be uninstalled prior to updating the ESA drivers? I don't get the same answer twice from Dell Tech Support calls/chats. 4) I updated my SMBuss drivers and it told me that the directory did't exist and asked if I wanted to create it. I said yes as tech supt said that it was an important driver. 5) I now have only one Listed in my "add/remove programs" Nvidea Drivers with no size and no date or info. I still have the Nvidea section under Windows control panel and the Nvidea control panel opens.

Sean