Arch Linux

yuvadm

Member

From: Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel

Registered: 2012-08-08

Posts: 103

Website

HD constantly spinning down (and up)

I have an Asus F201E installed with arch and laptop-mode-tools.

No matter how I configure laptop mode, the HD is constantly spinning down.
I can be working on something and literally within several seconds hear the HD spin up twice

I don't care about battery life at this point, I'm afraid this will literally kill my HD.

My current laptop-mode.conf:

LM_BATT_MAX_LOST_WORK_SECONDS=600
LM_AC_MAX_LOST_WORK_SECONDS=360
CONTROL_READAHEAD=1
LM_READAHEAD=3072
NOLM_READAHEAD=128
CONTROL_NOATIME=0
USE_RELATIME=1
CONTROL_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT=1
LM_AC_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=200
LM_BATT_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=200
NOLM_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=7200
CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=1
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=254
LM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254
NOLM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254
CONTROL_HD_WRITECACHE=1
NOLM_AC_HD_WRITECACHE=1
NOLM_BATT_HD_WRITECACHE=0
LM_HD_WRITECACHE=0

Last edited by yuvadm (2013-08-22 10:26:08)

vacant

Member

From: downstairs

Registered: 2004-11-05

Posts: 816

Re: HD constantly spinning down (and up)

Are these ".conf" settings actually being applied though?

hdparm -I /dev/sda

yuvadm

Member

From: Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel

Registered: 2012-08-08

Posts: 103

Website

Re: HD constantly spinning down (and up)

Yeah, seems like they are applied.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: HD constantly spinning down (and up)

If you do hdparm -B /dev/sdX then what does it tell you the APM is set to?  I have never used laptop-mode-tools, so I cannot help you with that specifically.  But what happens if you set the Advanced Power Mode specifcally?  That is, do something like hdparm -B 254 /dev/sdX.  I chose 254 because 255 will completely disable APM, but this feature is not supported by all drives.  So typically a value of 254 will achieve the same thing.  You might also want to try using something almost as high, but not quite (like 250), as that should still prevent your drive from spinning down.

Pse

Member

Registered: 2008-03-15

Posts: 415

Re: HD constantly spinning down (and up)

On my laptop (Acer laptop, Toshiba hard-disk) these two lines were necessary to prevent the hard-drive from spinning down when running on AC:

hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda > /dev/null
hdparm -S 241 /dev/sda > /dev/null

Removing either one of them caused the drive to spin down every now and then.

Edit: I am not sure which are the laptop-mode-tools settings related to these, as I don't use laptop-mode-tools.

Last edited by Pse (2013-08-23 00:38:00)