Windows 7 - A couple of questions

1) When I turn off my PC at night, which I do every night, should i turn the power button on the back off my PSU off as well? Or should this be left on?

2) My hard drive has recently begun to make very light, and what seems like, scratching noises. It only seems to happen when data is being written or retrieved. What could this possibly be? I have no idea how a hard drive really works. Are there moving parts in there besides the disk spinning that could be scrapping? Or could it simply be a disk reader making those noises as it moves?


Thanks
Sean

ad 1) I do that if a thunderstorm is in the area - or if you have fequent power failures. In any case, it cannot hurt. It is even better to switch off the power strip where you may have other units too (Monitor, Router, External disk, etc.)

ad 2) Most hard drives do that. It is the arm that moves around. It is some rasping sound. I would not worry about it.

1: It doesn't matter. I'd leave it on just to save the time of switching it back on.

2: Besides the disc platter spinning, the head also moves an inch or two, so it can read every part of the disc. Hard drives do make noise, and scratching sounds are pretty common. I wouldn't worry about it too much unless it starts making very funny noises. Then test it out with one of these programs: HD Diagnostic

If you are going to go through all that trouble of switching off the I/O switch in the back of the PowerSupply...

just like they said... Thunderstorms.. the best thing to do there is completely remove the 115volt cable from the Power Supply.. that is the safest thing for your computer.

Honestly I dont know what that rocket swtich is in the back of the Power Supply is used for...My old 350 watt has one but my new 600watt doesn't have one

1) No need to turn the PSU rocker switch off... if you do, you will have to replace the motherboard's backup battery more often as the PSU supplies a small current that holds CMOS memory in place taking the load off the battery. (plus a few other monitoring functions) i.e. booting the computer from a hot-key command.


2) Over time as the drive is used and data written/deleted...etc.. the read/write head has to do a little more work and as a result will become more audible as it moves around searching for data.

Ap

yeah that is true...
if you dont have that little power going to the motherboard... the CMOS is not kept... the power to the motherboard is not kept... so the Powersupply you can say is like the alternator to the CMOS battery. Then again the CMOS battery is littium so it can hold a long charge *lol*

umm your WOL (Wake On Lan) won't work... thats another thing. Some Add On Boards require very little power to be supplied to them...
yeah forgot about those little things.

I tend to do what you advised in your original post... there are a lot of thunder/lightning storms here in the summer, I unplug the power cable from the PSU. Since I'm using DSL for the moment, I also unplug the phone line.

Ap

Thanks for all you're great replies. I did notice that battery on the motherboard and was sure it kept information as what was mentioned. I was just wondering if It was more wear on the PSU to leave it on rather than turning it off. But yeh, I always unplug it during thunder storms.


Thanks again guys
Sean

For electronic components.. it's less wear to leave them on.

Ap

For Thunderstorms, spend $50 on a good powerstrip from APC.