[SOLVED] How-to disable hdd spinoffs on a laptop?

veeall · 08-06-2010, 05:19 PM

Hi!
I have Aspire one 752 netbook with slack 13.1 installed. I installed laptop-mode-tools from slackbuilds to control power management and etc.

I'd like to make sure that sda drive in netbook never spins off when not running on batteries. For now it seems to spin down after every half a minute and is producing clicking sounds. I issued 'hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda' which seemed to work - no clicks any more, and no spinning-up sounds.

What is the right way to make this change to be applied whenever netbook is on AC power?

Thanks for any help, i've heard frequent spin-downs won't do good to a drive.

Edit: Also, how to make this 'hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda' survive hibernate, as it reverts to '96' after being resumed:
# hdparm -B /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
APM_level = 96

Edit2: Ok, i changed hdparm -B values from 254 to 255 in laptop-mode.conf, since values of 254 and any other i tried(1, 96, 128) gave ioctl errors and were not applied to drive.

Code:

# hdparm -B 96 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 setting Advanced Power Management level to 0x60 (96)
 HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
 HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Input/output error

# hdparm -B  /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 APM_level      = off

After these edits it woke up from hibernate with APM_level = off.

Code:

#
# Power management for HD (hdparm -B values)
#
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=1
LM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=255
NOLM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=255

piratesmack · 08-06-2010, 07:08 PM

I didn't use laptop-mode-tools, but here is how I did this on my netbook

1. I created a script: /usr/local/sbin/set-apm.sh

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# sets apm level to 255 on ac_adapter, 128 on battery

STATE=$(awk '{print $2}' /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/*/state)

case $STATE in
  on-line)
    APM=255
  ;;
  off-line)
    APM=128
  ;;
esac

hdparm -B $APM /dev/sda

2. To make sure this script is run on boot, I edited /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Code:

#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/rc.d/rc.local:  Local system initialization script.
#
# Put any local startup commands in here.  Also, if you have
# anything that needs to be run at shutdown time you can
# make an /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown script and put those
# commands in there.

/usr/local/sbin/set-apm.sh > /dev/null
/etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager start
/usr/local/sbin/keep-updated.sh &

3. To make the script run whenever I (un)plug the ac adapter, I edited /etc/acpi/acpi_handler.sh

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# Default acpi script that takes an entry for all actions

IFS=${IFS}/
set $@

case "$1" in
  button)
    case "$2" in
      power) /sbin/init 0
         ;;
      lid) /usr/sbin/pm-suspend
         ;;
      *) logger "ACPI action $2 is not defined"
         ;;
    esac
    ;;
  ac_adapter)
    /usr/local/sbin/set-apm.sh
    ;;
  *)
    logger "ACPI group $1 / action $2 is not defined"
    ;;
esac

4. And to make the script run after resuming from suspend/hibernate I created a script: /etc/pm/sleep.d/00-set-apm.sh

Code:

#!/bin/sh

case $1 in
  resume | thaw)
    /usr/local/sbin/set-apm.sh
  ;;
esac

Make sure any scripts you create are executable

veeall · 08-07-2010, 07:27 AM

Thanks, Piratesmack!
It seems laptop-mode-tools handles hibernate fine if 'hdparm -B' is set to 255, for some reason i can't find any working 'hdparm -B' value for my drive except '-B 255'. I've got to see if laptop-mode-tools are able to turn on power management of sda when on batteries. I'll check later when off AC.

I'm sure, without using laptop-mode-tools, Piratesmacks howto would be good solution for the problem. I mark this thread SOLVED.

veeall · 08-08-2010, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veeall

...for some reason i can't find any working 'hdparm -B' value for my drive except '-B 255'. I've got to see if laptop-mode-tools are able to turn on power management of sda when on batteries...

No, they didn't. -B value in hdparm stayed on 255(APM OFF). Only when booted with batteries on, it got set to default 96 by bios, i guess.

I found an utility from the net hd-idle which is able to shut this hdd down after given time without relying on hdparm.

EDIT: To summarize. Laptop-mode-tools are disabling Power management for my netbooks HDD by setting 'hdparm -B 255 /dev/sdX' in all laptop power modes, later i can use hd-idle to set my custom timer for spinning down a disk. I found out that the problem i had is probably due to Western Digital hd drive settings and is to be modified by an official utility called 'wdidle3.exe' from a DOS boot disk for example, see here