XPS 8940, Disk Activity light behind. Why?

I can't answer the disc light.  

I'm surprised Win 11 so early.  Probably no way to opt out.  I have Win 11 and its basically just Win 10 "2.0".  Not a lot different on the surface.  I have a recording studio and everything that worked in previous Windows works without problems in Win 11.

Thanks for your response.

I can't seem to figure out the logic of placing Hard Drive Activity light on the back of the Desktop. What were they thinking?

I downloaded Win 11 ISO and created a USB installation boot drive. Clean installed Win 11 and the system is working great. Only problem is that when I click on Microsoft Store App on the desktop to download Dell Apps, typing Dell does not bring up anything. 

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@moby66 wrote:

1. Can anybody please explain what is the logic of installing Hard Disk Activity indicator behind XPS8940 Desktop? Why was it not placed in the front of the desktop?

@moby66,

Surprised me too.

I usually didn't think it had much value myself. However there were times I'd look at to make sure something was loading/working.

My wife PC had the LED 'burn out'. Figuring it was needed, I found on the web a few programs that would put 'lights' on the Systray.

Put it on, and then took it off.

The only time I think 'we' really need it is during SHUTDOWN. On her PC all you see is 'Shutting down' on the screen. The Systray apps close and they are no use at that point to see if the disk is being written to during shutdown.

Me, I'd want it back on the FRONT or maybe a BIOS setting to enable/disable it.

Dell's thought was to satisfy some people, but the implementation could have been better.

Ispalten

The light in the back is really useless, they could as well remove it like they did in the XPS 8930.

like the disk activity light visible in the front panel, it doesn't have to be bright, just visible!

That disk activity light placed in the back is completely useless, am I supposed to put a mirror behind the desktop to see the light ?

I just fired up my new XPS 8940 and have the same complaint.  I have an older XPS 8300.  It has an activity led visible in the front panel. It can't be much lager than a mm and sure is not excessively bright, but still very useful.

Has anyone figured out a hardware hack to make it visible (other than a mirror)?

A piece of tape would 'mute' a front facing led that was felt to be too bright.

The XPS-8950 is the same.  Perhaps a small mirror on the wall behind the computer?

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@dan-z wrote:

The XPS-8950 is the same.  Perhaps a small mirror on the wall behind the computer?

 

 

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Doesn't help if under a cabinet or below the desk.

Wish there was a gadget with a fiber optic cable you could put over it and then leave the end on the top of the case?

Otherwise, there are s/w applets that sit on the right taskbar systray that shows disk activity (which also uses the CPU of course). See https://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/26/featured/hard-disk-activity-indicator-software-windows.html 

I've used them in the past when the LED died on an XPS8500. Have to have the monitor on to see it is a drawback. Don't know what is happening in terms of disk access when the monitor is off or the Screen Saver is on, nor during boot before Windows Desktop appears or during Shutdown when the desktop closes.

I placed a mirror, that worked seeing from angled position.   Then, after a year or so, I decided to put an LED on front panel.   I build a small circuit, a photo-transistor picked up rear side LED light, that turned a transistor ON, that turned a red LED on front panel ON.   Very convenient.

Tak