Laptop-Mode-Tools

PaulyWally · 09-27-2010, 07:51 AM

Running Ubuntu 10.04

In an attempt to conserve more battery power, I uninstalled 'pm-utils-powersave-policy' and installed 'laptop-mode-tools'.

It seems the HDD is constantly spinning up and down, and up down. Sometimes I might not even be touching the laptop, and I can hear it spin down... and then 30 seconds later it'll spin up.

Is this normal?

P.S. - running on a Dell Latitude E4300

H_TeXMeX_H · 09-27-2010, 08:07 AM

It's not normal. I have a laptop like this and they say the drive, a Travelstar has a firmware bug that causes it to cycle a lot, which wears it down quickly. I stopped it by using a script that wakes up the drive every few seconds, see:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post3413908
And you can read the whole thread if you want.

First I would try the hdparm command listed there 'hdparm -B 255 /dev/xxx'. Then try to see if there's a firmware release to fix it. Then, if not, try the solution above.