Michael Hennebry wrote: > 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? > 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). > 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? Depends on your m/b. If you've got a BMC, install OpenIPMI and ipmitool. > > Time for a backup. 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 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos