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The underlying reason why hard disk sounds are appealing is the same reason why progress bars are appealing. They provide feedback that this mysterious box is d

The underlying reason why hard disk sounds are appealing is the same reason why progress bars are appealing. They provide feedback that this mysterious box is doing something. Good (unintentional) product design.

brody_hamer 4y ago
I recently started getting some slight audio interference when there's activity on my network card. It's like a sixth sense into the packets flowing over the wire. I can hear how a video stream buffers, or how network-heavy a loading web page is.
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  My zen3 desktop build reused a decade old PSU, and inductors would whine when scrolling in a web browser and stuff. Then I got a 6800xt GPU, and the PSU died the morning after overclocking and stress testing the GPU. The new PSU seems quieter.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I used to get some significant interference from my mp3-player/headphones when my cellphone was about to go off. "2G" (not sure they called it that at the time) interference actually had a pretty good tune to it. da-Da-da da-Da-da da-Da-da daaaaaa.
- perryizgr8 4y ago
  A good way to detect a network loop is to stand a bit further from the rack and see if any lights on the switches are blinking in sync. Much quicker to see this pattern than "show interface stats" on telnet and check the numbers.
whoopdedo 4y ago
I've developed a pavlovian response of listening for noise when the computer is taking longer than expected to tell if the process has hung.
layer8 4y ago
I recommend Progressbar95, which provides progress bars and great HDD sounds, among other things: https://youtu.be/aTM8wxMIIx8 https://youtu.be/aTM8wxMIIx8
copperx 4y ago
Those sounds irritated me to no end when the disk was thrashing because it meant that the computer was about to or had just became unresponsive. It also indicated insufficient caching. "Why is the disk spinning endlessly? I just clicked the open dialog! Did the OS suddenly forget about the 10 files that I have in my home folder?"
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  I tried a windows ext2 filesystem driver once. It killed the drive after a few days, presumably from wildly moving the read head without any intelligent sequential movement scheduling.
  - jraph 4y ago
    Seems coincidental. I would not expect a drive being killed after a few days only.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  People get frustrated with progress bars too but that's kind of orthogonal to what I am saying. HDD thrashing around is not the problem with the feedback mechanism (that's working just fine), but the underlying equipment has failed. Progress bars are notoriously annoying when they just don't move! Don't hate the progress bar, blame the equipment. I know there are some fake progress bars out there...just shows that giving feedback is so important that people fake it even!
  - Moru 4y ago
    The fake progress bar is still filling a function. It shows the computer didn't completely freeze up. There was a time when that was a big question. Did my computer freeze up and I need to press the power button? The mouse cursor might be hidden on the loading screen so you have no idea if it's working or crashed.

brody_hamer 4y ago

I recently started getting some slight audio interference when there's activity on my network card. It's like a sixth sense into the packets flowing over the wire. I can hear how a video stream buffers, or how network-heavy a loading web page is.

sgtnoodle 4y ago
My zen3 desktop build reused a decade old PSU, and inductors would whine when scrolling in a web browser and stuff. Then I got a 6800xt GPU, and the PSU died the morning after overclocking and stress testing the GPU. The new PSU seems quieter.
bee_rider 4y ago
I used to get some significant interference from my mp3-player/headphones when my cellphone was about to go off. "2G" (not sure they called it that at the time) interference actually had a pretty good tune to it. da-Da-da da-Da-da da-Da-da daaaaaa.
perryizgr8 4y ago
A good way to detect a network loop is to stand a bit further from the rack and see if any lights on the switches are blinking in sync. Much quicker to see this pattern than "show interface stats" on telnet and check the numbers.

whoopdedo 4y ago

I've developed a pavlovian response of listening for noise when the computer is taking longer than expected to tell if the process has hung.

layer8 4y ago

I recommend Progressbar95, which provides progress bars and great HDD sounds, among other things: https://youtu.be/aTM8wxMIIx8 https://youtu.be/aTM8wxMIIx8

copperx 4y ago

Those sounds irritated me to no end when the disk was thrashing because it meant that the computer was about to or had just became unresponsive. It also indicated insufficient caching. "Why is the disk spinning endlessly? I just clicked the open dialog! Did the OS suddenly forget about the 10 files that I have in my home folder?"

sgtnoodle 4y ago
I tried a windows ext2 filesystem driver once. It killed the drive after a few days, presumably from wildly moving the read head without any intelligent sequential movement scheduling.
- jraph 4y ago
  Seems coincidental. I would not expect a drive being killed after a few days only.
systemvoltage 4y ago
People get frustrated with progress bars too but that's kind of orthogonal to what I am saying. HDD thrashing around is not the problem with the feedback mechanism (that's working just fine), but the underlying equipment has failed. Progress bars are notoriously annoying when they just don't move! Don't hate the progress bar, blame the equipment. I know there are some fake progress bars out there...just shows that giving feedback is so important that people fake it even!
- Moru 4y ago
  The fake progress bar is still filling a function. It shows the computer didn't completely freeze up. There was a time when that was a big question. Did my computer freeze up and I need to press the power button? The mouse cursor might be hidden on the loading screen so you have no idea if it's working or crashed.