The 4am hard drive dance...

[javadude]

My 721 hard disk crashed so dishnetwork sent me a new one.
It's wicked quiet, except for normal hard drive head movement.
(the last one whined like crazy).

For the last few nights, around 4am, the hard drive does a little dance. What I mean is it sounds like it's doing some major searching or writing for about 5-10 minutes. The 721 is turned off when this happens.

Anyone know what's going on? My guess is it's the program guide download... If so, is there anyway to change when it downloads?

Thanks in advance,
-- Scott

[SteveinDanville]

Welcome to the 721 club! You know, if you drank a little less "java", maybe the hard drive wouldn't bother you so much at 4:00 a.m. Jusk kidding... Don't think it can be changed.

[Hippazoid]

I'm a new user that just hadta chime in on this one... I too, drink waayyyyyy too much java! :coffee As for the 4AM HD Dance, this just happens to be during my quality PTV time. I mean, after a hard night at work sucking down cup after cup of strong coffee, what's one supposed to do at 4AM? Sleep??? PUH-leeeeEEEEZ!!! :D

I can't imagine this not being on the Feature Wishlist. Wouldn't even need to be a dedicated scheduling config for these 'routines'. They could easily sample activity and schedule in background, according to actual usage patterns.

2nd Shift n00b,

Hipp

[Jacob S]

Perhaps a task scheduler is what is needed just like what is found on a computer. I will add this to my website. Does this cause shows or recordings to perform at that time to pixellate when it performs those tasks?

[Hippazoid]

Perhaps a task scheduler is what is needed just like what is found on a computer. I will add this to my website. Does this cause shows or recordings to perform at that time to pixellate when it performs those tasks?

No, it does not affect the recorded program. Of course, the programs are recorded early in the evening while I'm at work. It's while I'm doing the playback at 4AM-ish that I get the pause/slo-mo thing. Come to think of it, it NEVER actually pixellates. Always a clean picture, just does slo-mo. As others have posted, I can do a 10-sec back and 9 times out of 10 it will not do it the second time thru.

Definitely, some sort of scheduler... whether it be fully-configurable or usage-based scheduling. I may be way off on the programming aspect of it, but it would seem to be something simple to resolve. You know when someone starts playback and how long it will last. Schedule for any other time than this. I mean, most of us are such creatures of habit. :rolleyes:

Hipp

[Jacob S]

I know exactly what you mean by the slo-mo thing. The hard drive gets a load on it and it slows it down just as it would an internet connection while downloading a song on dial-up or when your computer slows down. When the hard drive has to do more than one function at once and its too much for it to handle, it has to slow one task down.