Hello
This is a somewhat peculiar problem, perhaps someone could help me.

When I log out, after about 10 minutes or so of not using the computer, the hard disk starts chewing like crazy. It doesn't stop until I either log in, or shut the machine off.

I thought perhaps using a graphical user interface (Gnome) was a bit too heavy for this old machine, so I changed runlevel to 3, so that x-server is off when I'm logged out, but that didn't help. I've also checked that the system use DMA for the hdd (hdparm). I've turned off every service I don't need (using the RH service configurator) but nothing seem to help.

I don't know what it could be. Why does it make noise only when I'm not using the computer? What programs/services/daemons could be running using the harddisk to that extent and at that time? What should I look for? What tools to use? Please don't get too linux-technical with me, I'm fairly new to this OS

Thanks for reading.
/Henrik Leion


Some system info:
RedHat 7.3 (2.4.18, rel 17.7.x)
Pentium 120 MHz
64M ram
what else do you want to know?

old harddisks usually make a lot of noise
the noise that you hear from harddisk is becoz of the platter that is spinning inside your harddisk
usually a bit of sound is considered ok
but if there is a lot of sound something may have gone wrong
does your harddisk support SMART
check it out
and see if there is anything wrong with harddisk

Well, actually, the sound I was trying to describe is the hdd r/w-ing, and it does that a LOT.
The hdd is a Seagate MedalistPro 2520, and is SMART. However it's not supported by my bios. Maybe I'll give it a try to update it if all else fails.

I think that the hdd is ok, but that some software is running accessing it all the time the computer is available (that is, when I'm not using it).

These are the processes running mentioned by pstree:
atd, bdflush, crond, gpm, 8*httpd, kapmd, keventd, 3*kjournald, klogd, ksofticqd_CPU0, kswapd, kupdated, login---bash---pstree, mdrecoveryd, 5*mingetty, portmap, rhnsd, rpc.statd, syslogd, xfs, xinetd

Does this seem normal? When this pstree was generated, I used the computer, which maybe could have influenced the eveidence.

What other tools can I use to unravel this mystery?

I'm using ext-3. Could it be the indexing that's going beserk?
Maybe it's a cron-job running or RHNetwork installing stuff? How do I find out?

i don't think that the processes you have given can influence what is happening in your harddisk
instead the operating system driver may be responsible
type dmesg
it should contain a line something like this
hda:<your hard disk manufacturer>
it might also be hdb,hdc,hdd too
now if it is the correct driver the operating system is usually not
responsible for the extra noise
if your BIOS contains information about PC health check(it contains information about power ,voltage and speed)
whether everything is ok
and finally since you said that SMART is not supported by BIOS
it is a good idea of flashing and upgrading your bios
(this may also be a bad idea-make sure that you know what you are doing -there is no possibility of a power failure -and the correct bios)
keep posted

Thank you rch for helping me.

dmesg only outputs hundreds of lines that looks something like this:
<6> IN=eth0 OUT=MAC=[some mac-adress] SRC=[someone in my university subnet] DST=[broadcast adress in my student univ subnet] ...etc

I suppose it's a log of incoming broadcast messages. I tried to grep for 'hda', and similarities, but didn't find any.

BUT, I found in /proc/ide/ide0/hda a couple of interesting files. The file model contains "ST52520A", which i assume indicates that my system at least knows what harddisk it has. The file driver contains "ide-disk version 1.12".

So I guess next step is start looking for a new bios for the old mobo.

/Henrik

go like this....

dmesg | grep hd

dmesg is the kernel boot message
since you have /proc/ide/blah .. blah
you have a devfsd system
even then while grepping you should have got your harddisk manufacturer name
well anyway it is clear that your bios is using the correct harddisk driver
the version is the general ide disk version(used by all ide device)
well if you have any other operating system -
does the amount of noise remain the same while using the other os?
i think you should try this
or you can try to install a minimum system in a small partition or floppy ,boot from there and see if the noise remains