May 25, 2011
What is happening when the light on my computer keeps blinking?
Posted by: kk : Category: Computer Question Answers
Question by Tiffany: What is happening when the light on my computer keeps blinking?
Sometimes when I am on my computer, the light on my CPU is constantly blinking and I hear the computer making noises. I am not having problems with my computer, I just wonder what it is doing. Could it be transfering information on what web site I am on to another computer, or just doing something within itself?
Best answer:
Answer by Fox Team
unplug the monitor then attatch it again , see what will happen
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5 Responses to “What is happening when the light on my computer keeps blinking?”
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May 25th, 2011 at 9:18 am
the HD light flashes to indicate hard drive activity. what it’s doing is anyone’s guess!
May 25th, 2011 at 9:29 am
the lights might mean different depending on who the manufacturer is. If you see blinking lights.. and you hear noises on your computer at the same time, that would most likely be for Hard Drive access (usually a Drum symbol). Anytime information is accessed/writted on the Hard drive, this light would blink accordingly. The faster it is accessing data, the faster the blinking light. Thus you might also hear some clicking sound. As long as the clicking sound is not loud.. it is pretty normal.
If you’re doing nothing, and you notice that the there is a lot of drive activity, there can be a lot other things that’s going on. it could be malware, it could be automatic windows update, it could be doing file paging etc.. if you notice that your computer is slowing down, try scanning for spyware or viruses. Also running defragmenter is recommended.
May 25th, 2011 at 9:39 am
It is normal to have at least 2 lights that are always on, on your computer when it is up and running. That is one steady light to show that the power is turned on to your computer. The other is the hard drive light, and when it blinks it shows that, at that time itis actively reading your information that you have stored on your hard drive. When it is not blinking that means that it is laying dormant and waiting for some response from you, but that is only if you aren’t actively using the computer and it is left on yet in the sleep mode.
The noises that you are hearing could be the internal fans running that help cool down the components inside the CPU (tower, desktop, box, brain … what ever you choose to call it) you might also hear the powersupply running which supplies not only power to your computer but also either sucks out the warm air or blows in cool air, depending on the type of powersuppy you have inside. And on occassion, especially with older computers you will have hard drive noise from when it is active and reading information on the hard drive for they have an arm inside of them that sways back and forth over thin metal platters (think vinyl records without the grooves but metal) and if your hard drive has been turned off or rebooted improperly this arm comes to a sudden stop which eventually digs into the platters and warps them enough that they start making noise. If it is super noisy there is a good chance that your hard drive is in trouble, if it is mild to quite then most of the time you have nothing to worry about.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:29 am
The blinking light signifies hard drive activity within itself or acquisition in the form of your or outside requests. Data is transferred back and forth between your computer and the web site you are on through their server. you can witness that from your connection speed. So its doing both and its normal. If your questioning what type of data is being transferred (whether your being hacked ) then you should be running updated anti virus and anti spyware in top security modes and set your browser to top security mode. Its the most secure but many good sites will bounce you ( they want to know who you are for their security reasons) Mid level security settings restrict you much less and allow for good secure surfing.
May 25th, 2011 at 11:22 am
The hard drive is working. Hit ctrl/alt/delete and see if there is anything running that looks suspicious. If suspicious, check it out on the web. While this is not uncommon, it is good to check, as frequent unusual activity is a symptom of spyware