Adam Hardy wrote:
I installed etch onto a new pc which is made up of a low energy
consumption mobo and two 2.5 inch laptop 120 gig harddrives.
The low energy consumption was my priority because I want to leave the
machine on 24x7. However these are the first 2.5 inch harddrives I've
ever had and they (or at least one of them) are making a disconcerting
clicking noise every 5 to 25 seconds at random - it sounds a bit like a
metronome, if it wasn't so irregular.
What I'm wondering, is whether it's etch reading or writing and the
noise is the disc spinning up or the heads engaging.
I've configured the machine to run as a proxy gateway for my network
with a firewall, but also with KDE, although that's not running as I sit
here now listening to it. I shut down a few of the daemons that I
thought might be causing it, but it carries on regardless.
As well as being disconcerting, it's also an issue because I want to use
this as a media center as well, and the last thing I want is some
constant clicking noise.
How much memory does this laptop have, and what services are you
actually running? I would turn off everything and then enable things
one by one. AFAIK, there should be no disk access if there are no
services running and there is enough ram (which is most likely the case)
to run the system without having to use swap.
Do you really think it is wise to use the laptop as a do-it-all machine
like you're planning?