Dell Dimension - Blinking Hard Disk Light - SOLVED

Gday,

I have gone though the extensive posts here and determined the root cause of the regular blinking hard disk light problem. Their is no solution from DELL because they refuse to see it as a problem.

Summary:

Regular blinking hard disk light when their is no Hard Disk or CDROM activity.

Problem:

While DELL support continue to state this is normal behaviour for their computers it is not considered normal computer behaviour. Computer hard drive lights should NOT flash when their is no disk activity. This must be a design fault of the DELL motherboard. 

Cause:

Windows-XP polls the DVD-RW or CD-RW drive on a regular basis checking the media type loaded. It appears the DELL motherboard hard disk drive light shows ANY activity on the IDE controller and not just hard disk activity unlike every other computer in the world.

DELL Systems Affected:

Many DELL systems with a DVD-RW or CD-RW drive installed.

Symptoms:

Hard Disk Drive light flashes every second when their is no other disk/process activity.

Requirements:

• Windows XP Home/Professional Edition
• All indexing services are disabled. (Windows, Google Desktop, Microsoft Office)
• CD-RW or DVD-RW drive is installed.

Diagnosis (instructions for Windows-XP):

1. Left click the Start button, right click on My Computers then left click Properties.
2. Left click the hardware tab then left click the device manager.
3. Left click the plus sign next to DVD/CD-ROM drives to display installed drives.
4. Locate the drive in this list that is rewritable. -/+RW should appear in the name.
5. Right click on the drive and left click on disable. 
6. The blinking should now stop.
7. Right click on the drive and left click on enable.
8. The blinking will start again.

Solution:

Dell fixes their motherboard or provide a bios update.

Impact:

While unusual behaviour this does not affect normal operation of the computer.

Regards

Kevin Davies (...building computer's for 15 years...)