Re: Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
to find how often the head get unloaded, I have completely prevented this effect to occur. Notice that you have 2 problems: 1- Unloading. 2- Reloading. From where I stand, the unloading is normal, harmless, and even desirable so the real problem is: why is it re-loaded every 3 minutes? I'd recommend you use /proc/sys/vm/block_dump to try and figure it out. OK. Unloading is normal harmless and so on... However what's strange in my case - unloading occures, wehen I USE my laptop remotely. (As my laptop has much higher performance than my desktop workstation, while the workstation has better keyboard, mouse and monitor, I very often work via remote ssh or X session). When working remotely, the laptops screen remains black, and when I e.g. edit my VHDL sources, loading may be simply caused by the autosave option in the editor. So the problem is why there is a difference between work on local keyboard (no unloading/loading due to entering the idle state) and remote work? I'd like to prevent the disk from entering the idle state, when working remotely... -- Wojtek -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120414102957.ga4...@wzab.nasz.dom
Re: Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
On Sb, 14 apr 12, 12:29:57, wzab wrote: So the problem is why there is a difference between work on local keyboard (no unloading/loading due to entering the idle state) and remote work? I'd like to prevent the disk from entering the idle state, when working remotely... Probably the keyboard/mouse events keep the laptop active. Kind regards, Andrei -- Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
green wrote at Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:22:32 -0500
wzab wrote at 2012-04-13 18:42 -0500:
A few weeks ago I've noticed, that my half year old laptop started
to behave strange.
When left unused, after the screen gets black to save power, the disks
starts to click every few minutes, and after each click the
Load_Cycle_Count (as reported by smartctl -a /dev/sda ) increases by
1.
You might want to look at the idle3-tools package and
http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net
Well, I've downloaded the idle3-tools-0.9.1.tgz and compiled it.
The first test has shown:
# ./idle3ctl -g /dev/sda
Idle3 timer set to 80 (0x50)
So it seems that the idle3 timer is really set to 80 which according to the
info in
the idle3ctl.8 it corresponds to 8 seconds!
However, before I decided to disable the idle3 timer, I wanted to verify,
that the problem still persists.
What's strange - today no continuous loading/unloading of heads takes place.
The conditions are the same as yesterday. Even yesterday I've restarted the
machine
(cycling the power off/on) after changes in /etc/hdparm.conf, and even with that
the Load_Cycle_Count was continuosly increasing.
Today it still the same, increasing by one only after power off/power on.
Of course I have waited until the rkhunter and updatedb finched their work
(as they kept the disk active).
So finally I'm giving up. I set the idle3 timer to disabled in the WD drive.
Switch the machine off and on (as described here:
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-351295/the-s-m-a-r-t-attribute-193-load-unload-counter-keeps-increa
it is necessary to switch the machine off and on to really disable the idle3
timer
after idle3ctl is used).
I also have the following added at the end of /etc/hdparm.conf:
/dev/sda {
apm = 255
apm_battery = 255
}
I hope it will allow my disks to survive next few years (curent count is:
282588 L_C_C
after 3580 Power_on_hours and 1686 Power_on_Counts in Seagate ST9500420AS,
and 97309 L_C_C after 1481 Power_on_hours and 692 Power_on_Counts in Western
Digital
WDC WD7500BPKT-75PK4T0
Thanks a lot for all suggestions!
Wojtek
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Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
Hi, A few weeks ago I've noticed, that my half year old laptop started to behave strange. When left unused, after the screen gets black to save power, the disks starts to click every few minutes, and after each click the Load_Cycle_Count (as reported by smartctl -a /dev/sda ) increases by 1. The laptop is equipped with Western Digital Scorpio WDC WD7500BPKT-75PK4T0 disk, however similar problem (well, the disk is much more silent, but Load_Cycle_Count is quickly increasing) occures also my wife's laptop equipped with Seagate ST9500420AS. I have found the website: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking , which describes the same or similar problem, but it seems, that solutions described there do not help. What's interesting - when I tried to run the following command (from remote console via ssh, so that the screen remains black): # ( LANG=C; while true ; do date ; smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle ; sleep 10 ; done ) /tmp/rep to find how often the head get unloaded, I have completely prevented this effect to occur. When I increased the delay between calls od smartctl, I stated, that problem occures ca every 3 minutes. I've tried to set: hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda and hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda Below are the results: root@WZLap:~# hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda /dev/sda: setting Advanced Power Management level to disabled APM_level = off root@WZLap:~# ( LANG=C; while true ; do date ; smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle ; sleep 10m ; done ) Sat Apr 14 01:07:06 CEST 2012 193 Load_Cycle_Count0x0032 168 168 000Old_age Always - 97297 Sat Apr 14 01:17:07 CEST 2012 193 Load_Cycle_Count0x0032 168 168 000Old_age Always - 97300 ^C root@WZLap:~# hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda /dev/sda: setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254) APM_level = 254 root@WZLap:~# ( LANG=C; while true ; do date ; smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle ; sleep 10m ; done ) Sat Apr 14 01:17:43 CEST 2012 193 Load_Cycle_Count0x0032 168 168 000Old_age Always - 97300 Sat Apr 14 01:27:44 CEST 2012 193 Load_Cycle_Count0x0032 168 168 000Old_age Always - 97303 ^C It is really allarming, as with warranted durability of 600 000 load/unload cycles, at this rate my drive will survive only ca. 3 years! I've verified, that the set APM level remains untouched (e.g. when set to 254, and after 20 minutes reported by hdparm -I /dev/sda: Advanced power management level: 254 ) The problem occurs even when the laptop is working on AC power. Does anybody know any good solution? Of course, I can run smartctl -a /dev/sda /dev/null every 60 seconds in the background, as it seems to prevent the problem, but it is rather not the optimal solution ;-) -- TIA Regards, Wojtek -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f88b9da.2000...@ise.pw.edu.pl
Re: Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
On Sat, 14 Apr 2012, wzab wrote: When left unused, after the screen gets black to save power, the disks starts to click every few minutes, and after each click the Load_Cycle_Count (as reported by smartctl -a /dev/sda ) increases by 1. ... I have found the website: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking , which describes the same or similar problem, but it seems, that solutions described there do not help. What's interesting - when I tried to run the following command (from remote console via ssh, so that the screen remains black): # ( LANG=C; while true ; do date ; smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle ; sleep 10 ; done ) /tmp/rep to find how often the head get unloaded, I have completely prevented this effect to occur. Well, you'd be keeping the disk _and the SATA link_ busy. Now, usually hdparm -B 254 can convince the disk to not be so silly as to destroy itself too fast in an attempt to save power, and you've already covered that one. So the next probable cause is SATA link power management causing the disk to decide that, since its PHY is down, it might as well unload the heads... It is really allarming, as with warranted durability of 600 000 load/unload cycles, at this rate my drive will survive only ca. 3 years! I've verified, that the set APM level remains untouched (e.g. when set to 254, and after 20 minutes reported by hdparm -I /dev/sda: Advanced power management level: 254 ) Disable SATA link power saving. Does that fix the problem? If it does, maybe a less aggressive level of SATA link power saving might also do the trick. Failing that, you can either disable SATA link power saving entirely and waste power, or start a hunt (maybe with the help of blocktrace, or the recently released LTTng 2.0 toolkit), to get rid of every crap that pesters the disk at regular intervals while the box is idle. Alternatively, you could also make sure something pesters the disk often enough for it to not unload heads. If it is not SATA link power saving, I am out of ideas. -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120414021718.ga10...@khazad-dum.debian.net
Re: Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
to find how often the head get unloaded, I have completely prevented this effect to occur. Notice that you have 2 problems: 1- Unloading. 2- Reloading. From where I stand, the unloading is normal, harmless, and even desirable so the real problem is: why is it re-loaded every 3 minutes? I'd recommend you use /proc/sys/vm/block_dump to try and figure it out. Stefan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jwv4nsn11ns.fsf-monnier+gmane.linux.debian.u...@gnu.org
Re: Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
wzab wrote at 2012-04-13 18:42 -0500: A few weeks ago I've noticed, that my half year old laptop started to behave strange. When left unused, after the screen gets black to save power, the disks starts to click every few minutes, and after each click the Load_Cycle_Count (as reported by smartctl -a /dev/sda ) increases by 1. You might want to look at the idle3-tools package and http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Disk clicking and in increasing Load_Cycle_Count in laptop with debian/testing
On Fri, 13 Apr 2012, green wrote: wzab wrote at 2012-04-13 18:42 -0500: A few weeks ago I've noticed, that my half year old laptop started to behave strange. When left unused, after the screen gets black to save power, the disks starts to click every few minutes, and after each click the Load_Cycle_Count (as reported by smartctl -a /dev/sda ) increases by 1. You might want to look at the idle3-tools package and http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net Added to http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking, thanks. Although wzab mentioned problems with a Seagate drive as well, so Intellipark might not be the root cause... -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120414034135.ga20...@khazad-dum.debian.net
