HDD, turn off blinking LED?

Question

Can you turn off the blinking HDD (hard disk drive) activity LED? It is driving me crazy.

speedstep · Accepted Answer

@Maniago  No you cannot turn this off but you can put a piece of black electrical tape over the led.

redxps630 · Accepted Answer

I think you mean this disk light #1

Hard-drive activity light

The activity light turns on when the computer reads from or writes to the hard drive.

This light is controlled by BIOS. Since the PC is brand new I would hesitate to kill the light (an integral part of motherboard back panel) irreversibly the hard way. Not just you, other users had reported this light being very active. Your only hope is Dell may fix this in future bios update if enough users complain.

JOcean · Accepted Answer

@speedstep probably has the best idea as looking at the 8940 startup manual and service manual that light looks to be part of the MB (on the back of the unit) and has no cable attaching it to the MB, a rather unique setup if you ask me. I also agree with @redxps630 inasmuch as you do not want to try and disable it in some permanent fashion. A BIOS update would achieve that if one is released. So a piece of black electrical tape would do nicely.

Maniago · Answer

It's a new 8940. I know it's silly but the stupid light is driving m nuts

redxps630 · Answer

It depends on your pc model. some pc has a dedicated two pin DuPont cable for hdd led which you can unplug from motherboard. older Dell XPS (such as 8300/8500) uses Intel 9 pin usb header on motherboard for front panel control (pwr sw, hdd led, pwr led, reset sw). If you have of these, you can modify the front panel cable to cut the hdd led.

Maniago · Answer

Thanks. Electrical tape it is. Not only is it very active it's so bright I can use it as my nightlight

XPS Desktops

HDD, turn off blinking LED?

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