nc10's disk LED blinking : OK ?

[jmg74fr]

Hi,
I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 and then voria's scripts on my nc10. And it absolutely nice :-) I have enabled laptop-mode like explained is this forum.

But hard disk's LED is often blinking (every 5 sec.).
(see a small video on http://gervaisprof.free.fr/nc10/nc10.MOV )
Is it OK ? The same for you ?
Is there a risk of failure for this drive (because of too many accesses) ?
And then, is there a solution ;-) ?

Thank you !

[voria]

My NC10 does not behave like this.
What HD is your NC10 shipped with?

Check it with the command:

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sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep "Model Number"

Mine is a Fujitsu MHZ2160BH G2, and the laptop-mode options described in the howto on this forum work good for it.
The fact is, there is not a standard rule for optimizing laptop-mode, if you have a different HD model you have to do your own tests to find the best configuration.
You can use the 'smartctl' command line utility (it's part of the smartmontools utilities) to check how many times the HD is waked up.
Use this command:

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sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load

A good behaviour is to wake up the disk an average of 15-20 times an hour (well, anyway it depends a lot on what kind of use you are doing of your NC10).

[jmg74fr]

My NC10 does not behave like this.
What HD is your NC10 shipped with?

Model Number: WDC WD1600BEVT-22ZCT0

The fact is, there is not a standard rule for optimizing laptop-mode...

In fact, I am not sure that laptop-mode is involved : it is the same on AC or battery.

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sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 6264
(Not very understandable for me ;-) Blinking often occurs when surfing on the web for ex.)
Thanks.

[voria]

In fact, I am not sure that laptop-mode is involved : it is the same on AC or battery.

Please attach here you dmesg output.

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 6264
(Not very understandable for me ;-) Blinking often occurs when surfing on the web for ex.)

You have to look at the last number (6264).
It's the number of times your HD has been waked up.
To check how many times it's waked up, take the number, use your NC10 for about an hour, then take the number again and do the difference.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

[jmg74fr]

1. I've attached my dmesg output (just after rebooting).

2.

It's the number of times your HD has been waked up.

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 6264
and after 20min approx. on AC, the same (?!) 6264. (0 / hour)

Then, after 50 min. approx. on battery, 6352. (105-106 / hour)

[voria]

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 6264
and after 20min approx. on AC, the same (?!) 6264. (0 / hour)

That's the correct behaviour, the disk never stops when you're using AC (no need for power saving), so it never wakes up.

Then, after 50 min. approx. on battery, 6352. (105-106 / hour)

This is way too high. So, the problem seems to be related to laptop-mode.
What's the value for the BATT_HD_POWERMGMT option in '/etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf'?
Try to raise the value (raise it to 180 or more), then do another test.

[jmg74fr]

What's the value for the BATT_HD_POWERMGMT option in '/etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf'?

192

I have raised to 200. Here is the new value for

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sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load

again 0 / hour on AC (ok, I've understood ;-) ) then 105 / hour on battery :-(

=> 1st question : LED blinking doesn't mean start/stop drive, OK, but is it dangerous for disk ?
I have tried 'iotop' : guilties could be firefox or kjournald2 (often accessing disk when I don't do anything on computer)

=> something else to verify ?

Many thanks

[voria]

105 / hour on battery :-(

AFAIK, some disks need very high values to limit load cycling.
Try again with 254 or even 255, if it's needed.

=> 1st question : LED blinking doesn't mean start/stop drive, OK, but is it dangerous for disk ?
I have tried 'iotop' : guilties could be firefox or kjournald2 (often accessing disk when I don't do anything on computer)

What filesystem are you using?
Anyway, there are so many reasons for the disk to be accessed, it's hard to figure out what's going on.
Please attach a new dmesg, taken after some time of work. Let's see if anything strange happens to the disk during this period.

=> something else to verify ?

Well, nothing else comes to my mind right now.