Harddrive spins down unwantedly

[hiyel]

I have set the idle timer in the Power Manager so that the HD never stops rotation when on AC source. But it doesn't work, HD spins down after a couple minutes of inactivity.

Are there any other settings for this other than the Power Manager?

[benjamino5]

Not sure if this will help, but are you going through the "Battery MaxiMiser" (the green battery indicator in the taskbar) or through the Windows control panel?

I wonder if the problem might lie in a conflict between the two--though I've never seen that happen.

So basically, I have no idea, but that's where I would start looking if I were you. Good luck!

[hiyel]

Thanks for the reply.

I was using IBM's Power manager, which is the program that comes up when you double click on the green battery indicator in the taskbar. However the Power Options under the Windows control panel essentially shares the same settings as well. If you look at the power profiles under both places, they have the same profile names.

Anways, I found the problem. I have installed the NHC the other day to give it a try, didn't like it, shut it down but didn't uninstall it. Aparrently NHC's harddrive settings superseded IBM's settings, and made the HD spin down after 5 minutes. I uninstalled NHC, restarted and the problem was gone.

[GomJabbar]

The other day, nonny referred to the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Between this thread (Harddrive spins down unwantedly) and the following thread, I am reminded of the story once again.

Hard Drive never turns off when on

[rkawakami]

Going the opposite way (a disk that spins up unwantedly).. One thing to watch for if you are running Windows XP is the Microsoft program "helpsvc". I don't know how many times I've had to kill that process on my Gateway. When it's running, it consumes at least 90% of the process time and the disk thrashes to no end.

(Gee.. talk about karma... I just noticed my CPU fan spinning up a couple of times while I was typing this.... opened Task Manager, and yup, there's helpsvc at 98% and using about 60MB of memory.)

[lev]

Going the opposite way (a disk that spins up unwantedly).. One thing to watch for if you are running Windows XP is the Microsoft program "helpsvc". I don't know how many times I've had to kill that process on my Gateway. When it's running, it consumes at least 90% of the process time and the disk thrashes to no end.

(Gee.. talk about karma... I just noticed my CPU fan spinning up a couple of times while I was typing this.... opened Task Manager, and yup, there's helpsvc at 98% and using about 60MB of memory.)

This is (supposed to be) fixed in win XP SP2, and there is also a hotfix:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=839017

[rkawakami]

This is (supposed to be) fixed in win XP SP2, and there is also a hotfix:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=839017

Hey, thanks for that link! My Gateway does not have SP2 installed at the moment. I'll probably end up waiting for a bit to upgrade and just keep manually killing the process when it pops up due to Microsoft's normal disclaimer: "This hotfix may receive additional testing."

(Sorry to get OT there...)

[christopher_wolf]

Anways, I found the problem. I have installed the NHC the other day to give it a try, didn't like it, shut it down but didn't uninstall it. Aparrently NHC's harddrive settings superseded IBM's settings, and made the HD spin down after 5 minutes. I uninstalled NHC, restarted and the problem was gone.

Just as a side warning; be cautious of NHC as some of the previous versions have been known to mess around with the registry settings for the power profiles and then cause problems with the initialisation of certain power schemes.