For a disk, smartctl is the way forward, and look at the attributes. T’interweb will advise on which three parameters are worth paying heed to.
smartctl -a /dev/sda
sensors (part of lmsensors) will report on some fans, maybe.
jh
3 thoughts on - Diagnosing Noise
Though quiet at the moment, my desktop sometimes sometimes makes a noise that I attribute to either a disk or a fan on its last legs. I’m looking for suggestions for distinguishing.
For the disk, I expect I should use either hdparm of fsck. Even after reading the man page, I’m not sure how I would use hdparm. If I use fsck, what should I take as evidence of a bad drive?
A good drive?
Is there a way to tell whether the OS thinks a fan is on?
Is there a way to turn a fan on or off manually?
Time for a backup.
Michael Hennebry wrote:
1. Have you looked at either /var/log/messages or dmesg for errors?
2. You can also use SMART:
step 1: smartctl -t short /dev/sd[abc…] (one at a time)
step 2, after 2+ minutes so the test’s done: smartctl -a | more
3. The long way would be fsck -c (check for badblocks).
Depends on your m/b. If you’ve got a BMC, install OpenIPMI and ipmitool.
Indeed. *AFTER* you do that, you could take the system down, open it up, and vacuum it – don’t forget the fans, heatsinks, and PSU.
mark
for fans, take the long paperboard tube from a roll of paper towels, plug one end into one ear and wave the other around near each of the fans.
the chancy part of having a fan go bad is tht after a while it seizes up completely and is then silent, so you forget about it til something in your system overheats.
3 thoughts on - Diagnosing Noise
Though quiet at the moment, my desktop sometimes sometimes makes a noise that I attribute to either a disk or a fan on its last legs. I’m looking for suggestions for distinguishing.
For the disk, I expect I should use either hdparm of fsck. Even after reading the man page, I’m not sure how I would use hdparm. If I use fsck, what should I take as evidence of a bad drive?
A good drive?
Is there a way to tell whether the OS thinks a fan is on?
Is there a way to turn a fan on or off manually?
Time for a backup.
Michael Hennebry wrote:
1. Have you looked at either /var/log/messages or dmesg for errors?
2. You can also use SMART:
step 1: smartctl -t short /dev/sd[abc…] (one at a time)
step 2, after 2+ minutes so the test’s done: smartctl -a | more
3. The long way would be fsck -c (check for badblocks).
Depends on your m/b. If you’ve got a BMC, install OpenIPMI and ipmitool.
Indeed. *AFTER* you do that, you could take the system down, open it up, and vacuum it – don’t forget the fans, heatsinks, and PSU.
mark
for fans, take the long paperboard tube from a roll of paper towels, plug one end into one ear and wave the other around near each of the fans.
the chancy part of having a fan go bad is tht after a while it seizes up completely and is then silent, so you forget about it til something in your system overheats.
Fred