On Thu, 3 Dec 2015, 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? > > 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? 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