Thinkpads Forum

Hi guys,

following problem: Using Linux (gentoo for that matter) on my Thinkpad T41p I'm having trouble with harddisk powermanagement.
I can't seem to get the harddrive to spin down. I issue "hdparm -S1 /dev/hda" expecting the harddrive to spin down after 5 seconds of inactivity but it doesn't. By the way laptop-mode tools are installed and working perfectly, there is absolutely no disk activity with laptop-mode running (so this is definitely not the problem). "hdparm -y /dev/hda" puts the drive into standby state just fine and the drive doesn't wake up until I exit laptop-mode (or MAX_AGE expires).
Short: No harddisk activity but the drive won't spin down automatically.
I've tried a whole lot of stuff already from disabling SMART to playing with the powermanagement options in the BIOS. Nothing has helped so far.
So this forum is my last hope somewhat. Is it possible that I have to enable/disable some special option in the BIOS to allow hdparm to spin the disk down?

Thank you for your suggestions!

shug

I also use gentoo on my T41.

Try -B 1 (sets to most aggressive advanced power management) in addition to setting the -S parameter at hdparm.

Wow! Thanks!! This has done the trick. It's working now.