From owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 6 13:45:55 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C7C316A4CE for ; Thu, 6 Nov 2003 13:45:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from moek.pir.net (moek.pir.net [130.64.1.215]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4942F43FFB for ; Thu, 6 Nov 2003 13:45:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from pir@pir.net) Received: from pir by moek.pir.net with local (Exim) id 1AHrwv-00020U-00 for freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org; Thu, 06 Nov 2003 16:45:53 -0500 Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 16:45:53 -0500 From: Peter Radcliffe To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20031106214553.GK27002@pir.net> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-fish: < X-Copy-On-Listmail: Please do NOT Cc: me on list mail. Subject: Re: Laptop hard drive spindown timeout X-BeenThere: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org List-Id: Mobile computing with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 21:45:55 -0000 Nate Clark probably said: > I'm surprised at how well 5.1-RELEASE is working on my IBM > Thinkpad 600X, with the exception of one annoying problem. When I'm > running from batteries, the hard drive spins down every second or so. Of > course this is usually followed by some disk activity requiring it to spin > up again. So my drive is in a constant state of spin down/spin up. All > I can think of is how much this is shortening the life of my drive. This > doesn't happen when on the AC adaptor. Needless to say, I never run on > batteries, which kinda defeats the purpose of having a laptop. > I'm not using APM or ACPI, although my troubleshooting with these enabled > has had no effect so far. Any ideas about how to fix this? I don't mind > doing a little kernel or device driver hacking if need be. Actually, I'd > enjoy it, just don't know where to begin. This is usually a BIOS feature, especially if you're not using ACPI. There is a program called ps2.exe, which you can get a standalone floppy version from IBM's driver download pages, which will configure the BIOS power features and other things. My guess would be that this can solve your problem ... P. -- pir