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    Hard drive spin up for no reason

    Discussion in 'HP' started by ScubaSteve69, Dec 27, 2007.

  1. ScubaSteve69

    ScubaSteve69 Newbie

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    Hi,

    I just bought an HP dv9644ca laptop (Windows Vista). Works great except for a quirk that is driving me nuts.

    The notebooks comes with a second hard drive which is currently empty (the OS is on the first). When I put the system in power saver mode the second drive will spin down as it should after a minute or so. However, the (second) drive will imediatly spin up again for no good reason, then spin down a minute later, then imediatly spin up.... and so on and so fourth.

    Why is this? The second drive is empty?

    This is really undermining the power saving features and probably isnt very good for the drive.

    Anyone have a solution for this?
     
    ScubaSteve69, Dec 27, 2007
    #1
  2. grabber_grabbs

    grabber_grabbs Notebook Guru

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    You probably have a software into the memory that seeks on the drive at 1 minute interval.
     
    grabber_grabbs, Dec 27, 2007
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  3. Reby

    Reby Notebook Consultant

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    Check the OS forum section and do the Vista tweaks, it could be a number of useless features that Vista has (ie defrag, search, backup/restore etc). After you go through the tweaks see if it clears up the problems.

    -Reby
     
    Reby, Dec 27, 2007
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  4. caveman

    caveman Notebook Consultant

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    i have the same notebook and i don't really notice that. so just wondering how do you notice that it is turning on and off.
     
    caveman, Dec 27, 2007
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  5. enalin7

    enalin7 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Is it the hard drive or the fan? My fan goes on and off and it drives me nuts.
     
    enalin7, Dec 27, 2007
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  6. dacher

    dacher Notebook Guru

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    ..task manager -> performance -> resource monitor -> disk

    check what files are open and busy. maybe you'll find a clue there.

    vista has much more automatic optimization and maintenance stuff going on in the background than xp, so that might be it
     
    dacher, Dec 27, 2007
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  7. ScubaSteve69

    ScubaSteve69 Newbie

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    Its not the fan.
    I know its the second drive because the clicking and whinning is comming from the second hdd bay.

    Looking at the disk IO in task\resource monitor doesnt really help since all the IO is to files on the C(1st) drive and not D(second) drive.

    The issue only arrise in 'power saving' scheme. Ot0herwise the hdd is set to stay on for 20+ minutes and the spin up/down issue is not as severe.

    -Steve
     
    ScubaSteve69, Dec 28, 2007
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  8. gridtalker

    gridtalker Notebook Virtuoso

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    You have something running that you are not aware of. Did you do a clean install.
     
    gridtalker, Dec 28, 2007
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  9. ScubaSteve69

    ScubaSteve69 Newbie

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    The notebook came installed with Vista + who knows what.

    I dont really what to go out and buy a freqsh copy.
     
    ScubaSteve69, Dec 28, 2007
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  10. Reby

    Reby Notebook Consultant

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    Reby, Dec 28, 2007
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  11. ScubaSteve69

    ScubaSteve69 Newbie

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    Well, I started disabling services and programs a handfull at a time.

    The last group I disabled was the search and superfetch services along with intel matrix storage manager...

    Im not sure which of these these three was the culprit, but the problem is now gone. If I do some more investigating, I will repost with more details.


    To be honest, I am surprised that I had this issue in the first place. Apparently they forgot that hdd's use batteries too...

    -Steve
     
    ScubaSteve69, Dec 28, 2007
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  12. caveman

    caveman Notebook Consultant

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    I was just testing this on my own dv9644ca, and when I held my head next to it I could hear the hdd spinning down after about a minute and then turn right back on and so goes the cycle. What I noticed though was that when it would turn off & on again in resource overview, that NT % Kernel would spike, everytime that happened. My guess is that it would be search doing that. But it really doesn't bother me that much. But I guess that if running on battery, and the hdd taking about a 1/2 watt of power, it does take some time off of the battery life.
     
    caveman, Dec 31, 2007
    #12