• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

SSD Constantly Active

Joined
Feb 22, 2016
Messages
2,373 (0.70/day)
Processor Intel i5 8400
Motherboard Asus Prime H370M-Plus/CSM
Cooling Scythe Big Shuriken & Noctua NF-A15 HS-PWM chromax.black.swap
Memory 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4-2400
Video Card(s) ROG-STRIX-GTX1060-O6G-GAMING
Storage 1TB 980 Pro
Display(s) Samsung UN55KU6300F
Case Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 3
Power Supply Super Flower Leadex III 750w
Software W11 Pro
I'm concerned about the fact my drive light is constantly flickering since installing SSD. As in after sitting idle for hours it still keeps up the exact same pattern of disk usage. For the life of me I can't figure out what is making it do this. Internet connection makes zero difference and I've been digging around in services etc to no avail.

Any ideas?
 
Automatic Maintenance running in the background? My laptop does this always and it never stops when idle.

My desktop however finishes in about 20 minutes.
 
I'm concerned about the fact my drive light is constantly flickering since installing SSD. As in after sitting idle for hours it still keeps up the exact same pattern of disk usage. For the life of me I can't figure out what is making it do this. Internet connection makes zero difference and I've been digging around in services etc to no avail.

Any ideas?

Windows 7 updates
 
New install with no updates, updates turned off, update service stopped.

It could be some kind of maintenance but it literally never stops and the drive light blinks in the same pattern with no stop from the time I turn the machine on.
 
Open the Task Scheduler and go to TaskScheduler and disable Idle maintenance.

Also you can leave the task manager processes open and check what it is doing when you leave it idle.
 
Check the Resource Monitor.
 
I'm having a hard time finding 'idle' maintenance.

I've been literally haunting the resource monitor for days trying to figure this out.

ixepXqs.jpg


Maybe you can see something I'm missing? I've systematically turned off any and every single thing that could be at fault. Still it just beat - flash - beat flashflash -half beat - flash. Ad infinitum.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm having a hard time finding 'idle' maintenance.

Ok , I'm not sure then, I'm running windows 8.1, thought windows 7 had this idle maintenance as well, maybe not then.
 
ixepXqs.jpg


Maybe you can see something I'm missing? I've systematically turned off any and every single thing that could be at fault. Still it just beat - flash - beat flashflash -half beat - flash. Ad infinitum.
Updates in Windows 7 are broke they constantly run even if you disable the service and on laptops and low powered devices you get constant thrashing of hard drives and cpu
 
This is the desktop in my system specs. I guess I'm on to uninstalling programs and rooting around in the registry looking for nasties.
 
New install with no updates, updates turned off, update service stopped.

It could be some kind of maintenance but it literally never stops and the drive light blinks in the same pattern with no stop from the time I turn the machine on.
it's normal to have a 'heartbeat'. Is that what you are seeing? Can you post up pics of hdd activity with task manager? You should be able to sort it by what is using the disk as well...



Should have read the whole thread, lol...

When I had this issue, it was with w10 and Logitech software for my camera...
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...dows-10-constant-low-HDD-use-(not-heartbeat-)
 
W7 only shows CPU and RAM activity in task manager. A heartbeat is very close to what it is. I've never had any hdd exhibit this behavior though.

It also never turns off. I set the drive to turn off under power options. Is that normal too?
 
Every single one of my systems do this and have done so forever. My spikes were bigger though and lasted a bit longer. As I said (linked), in W10 it was my logitech software for the webcam messing things up. I know you are on a different OS, but, was worth a try...
 
Gah, there's nothing but a few programs on the drive. So I'm just going to reinstall 7 and blame nefarious links to untrustworthy software on TPU for my troubles. :laugh:
 
May be something to look into, but I had a similar LED activity light on the Plextor M.2's early on. The activity light was just constantly on, like it was doing something, had me very worried! Ended up being a firmware update that I needed to correct it. Was much more quiet after that. Just seemed it reported it's activity incorrectly.

What about if you load into the BIOS/UEFI and just sit there. Is it still lit up likes it's active?
 
I'm concerned about the fact my drive light is constantly flickering since installing SSD. As in after sitting idle for hours it still keeps up the exact same pattern of disk usage. For the life of me I can't figure out what is making it do this. Internet connection makes zero difference and I've been digging around in services etc to no avail.

Any ideas?

What Make and model of SSD are you using?
 
Def not a firmware issue. 850 Evo and Magician shows it's up to date. Just rebooted into BIOS and no activity.

Other than a constant i/o flutter everything works good and isn't spitting out error reports. Going to try running a full disk error check since I just read somewhere it could be rewriting bad sectors that aren't showing for some reason?
 
Your worrying about nothing
 
I seem to be doing that a lot lately. On my own machines.

My side job as senior citizen IT consultant is starting to take its toll this Winter. I spent 4.5 hours last night sitting in the center of a circle fielding question and having mobile devices shoved at me. Then I woke up early to start playing this fun new hidden object game that one of them just couldn't get enough of on their laptop, Coupon Crusher!
 
New install with no updates, updates turned off, update service stopped.

It could be some kind of maintenance but it literally never stops and the drive light blinks in the same pattern with no stop from the time I turn the machine on.

Maybe a OS bug, try updating it. after all Win7 was not native to SSD's. All so it could be superfetch too caching data.
 
Maybe a OS bug, try updating it. after all Win7 was not native to SSD's. All so it could be superfetch too caching data.

Magician is able to turn that off. Id probably force a manual trim after using one of the magician config profiles.

Using 840 Pro on Patched W7.
 
Windows 7 doesn't treat SSD's very well. Turn off system restore, any backup, indexing and auto-defregging.
 
Magician is able to turn that off. Id probably force a manual trim after using one of the magician config profiles.

Using 840 Pro on Patched W7.

Except the first time using it and upgrading the firmware it's pointless having it running. and no need to force anything if you just uninstall it.

Windows 7 doesn't treat SSD's very well. Turn off system restore, any backup, indexing and auto-defregging.

True that, even win10 disables system restore off i have noticed lately. Oddly i noticed it doing this for HDD's too.

Yeah turning de-fraging off is a must, and no point in indexing as you all so said.
 
Already did all of the above including disabling superfetch. I'll figure it out eventually if there is a solution.
 
Pagefile also on c?
 
Back
Top