Stop HDD from spinning down rapidly; Acer Nitro 5 AN515-51

Hello everybody! Since my laptop does not care about the Windows' power option settings (put something like: let the hard drive stop spinning after x minutes of inactivity) I have looked for other ways to stop it from spinning down after 5-10 seconds. You can download a program called hdparm, and then via cmd and certain commands make the setting: let always the hard drive spin for at least 30 minutes. I have done this, but I'm not sure what has actually happened inside the computer. This model is very silent, normally, and the fans are louder than the hard drive. So it's difficult to tell from the noise from the computer whether the drive is spinning or not.

What worries me most right now is that I two days ago thought that I had solved the problem. I have two discs in this computer: C=SSD 128 GB and D=HDD 1 TB. The best way to describe what has happened is probably that those of you who have heard of hdparm have a look at the two screenshots.

Obviously at least one of the two messages I got back from cmd must be wrong. Because the SSD does not spin down after 30 minutes, for obvious reasons. But has it been affected in some other way? If it hasn't been affected at all, I cannot rely on what cmd ”tells me”. So in that case I do not know if the settings for HDD have been changed either.

And if I have only one HDD in the computer, isn't it natural to call it hda? When I the second time ran the cmd and instead of hdparm -S 241 hda wrote hdparm -S 241 hdb, I was convinced that the cmd would tell me that this is an invalid command. So in that case I would have felt sure that hdparm -S 241 hda is the right and only possible command. Now I don't now what to believe.

(Thread was edited to add model name to the title)

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per99

When I created one image of the two screenshots in my previous comment, it became obvious that the hard drive still spins down after 5-10 seconds. Because GIMP (a program like Photoshop) is stored on the HDD, and when the hard drive accelerates, it's very easy to hear that; it's a characteristic sound. The reason why I installed it on D is that C is relatively small. I use this computer for music production, and the plan was to store all audio (mostly recordings made with microphone) on the large HDD, and only what is absolutely necessary on C (and that's a lot).

So: Does anybody know of a method so I can have my hard drive turning for 30 minutes? And can we be sure that no damage has occurred when I used the command prompt twice?

P.S. Am I not supposed to ask questions about the Nitro model here? In that case: where?

JackE

per99

Thank you for starting your own new thread. However, please don't continue to post question about the same issue in other user threads, some of which are several years old. It will only delay resolution of your issues and may confuse other users trying to help.

One of the confusing issues in your other posts is if you have two drives right now or one drive installed right now? If two, did you migrate or clone Windows on the old HDD to the new SSD? If you did not do this, then the HDD will still be hda or sda. or the C : \ drive. And the SSD will be the D : \ drive hdb or sdb or D : \ . HDPARM spindown options do NOT apply to SSD.

per99

I bought this computer recently, second hand. It was originally manufactured in June 2017 (Acer Nitro AN515-51). It has always had two discs, and still has: One SSD, C: (128 GB) and one HDD, D : (1 TB). There is no doubt whatsoever about this.

I made a clean install, of course, of Windows 10 Home, where I checked the boxes for delete everything old on the two discs. And W10 is now installed on C (I guess everything else is impossible). Open Office, for example, is installed on D, and that works perfectly well (I have it on D in order not to waste any space on the relatively small C). Gimp (a program like Photoshop) is also installed on D, and it is possible to use it. But it is very annoying when it kind of freezes every now and then due to the fact that hdd still spins down after 5-10 seconds.

What's even more frustrating is that it seems I'm not going to be able to use this computer for music production. I have installed my DAW (REAPER) on C (the only natural thing to do). So called plugins, which I have plenty of, are also installed on C (these kind of things has to be handled quick). But when it comes to so called audio (mostly recordings made with microphone, but also samples (for examples one thousand samples from a grand piano)), I must use D for this, because there is simply not room enough on C. And in theory this is supposed to cause no problems (the fact that things are stored on different discs). But one thing is required, though: that the hard drive does not stop spinning after five seconds. (In fact it is possible to create music despite of this, but it requires a lot of (/too much) patience.)

The hard drive is a Western Digital WD10SPZX-21Z10T0 - 1TB 5.4K RPM SATA 7mm 2.5". It's SATA. Could it be that this specific model will continue to spin down rapidly whatever methods you try to use to prevent it from doing so?

What I wasn't sure of, before, was if C is always 'a' and D is always 'b'. But I think I understand now, that that's the case. Anyway, the command: hdparm -S 241 /dev/sdb did not solve the problem, although the “answer” I got from cmd was that "this unit" should be active for 30 minutes.

Thanks for your kind answer, JackE P.S. The reason why I asked the same question again, was that I discovered that this part of the forum seems to be meant only for Aspire, whereas there is another part for Nitro. So I thought my question in the Nitro-part would be published immediately, and then I had planned to immediately delete this post. But the Nitro-question never was approved.

JackE

OK. You're fine with posting on this section.

I also have a few of these particular WesternDigital WD10SPZX HDDs running both Windows & Linux and have no spin-down issues that you describe. However, they are all boot drives running as C : \ in Windows or sda in Linux. Linux including its derivative programs like HDParm sometimes have issues with second internal hard drives.

Another Linux-based derivative HDD utility APMTimer that addresses this issue for WD series HDDs has been reported. You might want to check it out. There are other possible solutions for Windows but you might want to try this first.

per99

Thanks. I just downloaded and extracted the tar.gz file. It contains six different files. This is a little bit beyond my knowledge and skills. For example, the compilation and installation instructions uses the dollar sign. I have no idea if I'm supposed to use that sing on a windows machine (and what to do with the six files). Maybe if I read the instructions over and over again and use Google, a little.

On the other hand I have decided not to rush. After all it's possible to use this laptop as is, and there is still plenty of space on the C-disc. But I will try to solve this!

I did contact the manufacturer, BTW, Western Digital, and asked in an email if they have a solution. They haven't answered yet (and I'm not sure that they will).

Cheers

/per99

JackE

Please post phone photos of your BIOS Information and Main tabs if possible.

per99

Main tabs.

BIOS-foton.zip

JackE

>>>Could it be that this specific model will continue to spin down rapidly whatever methods you try to use to prevent it from doing so?>>>

Do you have the laptop plugged in when trying to delay spindown?

per99

Yes, it has been plugged in.

JackE

No. I mean did you run HDPARM when the laptop was plugged in? HDPARM setting may not be persistent when re booted, unplugged/replugged,

per99

I was plugged in when I typed hdparm -S 241 /dev/sdb and pressed enter, and I was plugged in long enough afterwards to be able to determine that the action had not had the expected effect.

JackE

Open Device Manager. Expand System Devices folder. Do you see an advanced power management folder?

per99

I suppose this is what you mean. That was the first method I tried to use. But it didn't work.

Do you still think APMTimer could solve this, if I just can learn to understand how to use it?

per99

JackE said:

Another Linux-based derivative HDD utility APMTimer that addresses this issue for WD series HDDs has been reported. You might want to check it out. There are other possible solutions for Windows but you might want to try this first.

I actually found some instructions on the Internet. And a guy saying this is a permanent solution (although he hasn't got exactly the same drive). Do you think I should try to follow these instructions (I'm not sure I'm able to, but maybe)? And must I use Ubuntu instead of MS cmd? (What other solutions for Windows did you have in mind?)

https://community.wd.com/t/wd-blue-2-5-goes-to-sleep-spin-down-after-20seconds/141133

JackE

You seem to have an older Windows version installed. Try setting the HDD parameters to never turn off on both battery and plugged in. I suspect that even the Windows cannot control the HDD spindown and is fixed in the BIOS firmware. To be sure, also open Device Manager. Scroll down expand the System Devices folder. Do you see an advanced power management folder there?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/81/5q2seval6pq2.jpg

per99

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/q3/oyr4o76tnv35.jpg

Hi, my Windows version is 21H2.

I'm not sure if you mean that there should be a folder under System Devices in the Device Manager? Well, there isn't (I suppose Intel Power Engine Plug-in or ACPI Power Button isn't what you mean) – nothing like Advanced Power Management.

However, after having studied different Internet sites, I added PlatformAoAcOverride to a specific place in the registry, in order to get back the Power Management tab. Well – If I now right click on for instance Network Adapter in the Device manager, I can see a Power Management tab – like the one on the image (it's not my own image). But I can see a similar one on my own computer, in Swedish though. To be honest I'm not sure if it was there before I edited the registry, because I didn't investigate this issue in that way before I edited. BUT: If I right click on the hard drive (in the Device Manager) and choose properties - than I can not see Power Management.

Do you still think it would be a good idea to try to use APMTimer? (I don't know what to say about BIOS.)

per99

I tried to run APMTimer from cmd, but it seems it is not possible (?) I typed (when I was in the right directory): apmtimer -g /dev/sdb in order to get information about the present spindown time. But the answer I got back from cmd was: 'apmtimer' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

The guy who wrote the steps on the site I have already given a link to, suggests using Ubuntu. But I haven't downloaded Ubuntu (yet). And one reason is that I have already installed Python for Windows. (I did that a month ago when I was creating wavetables.) Could there be a conflict?

And also, I'm not familiar with Ubuntu commands. But here are the steps:

per99

P.S. These are the APMTimer files:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/dx/qetwme19w589.jpg

JackE

I think you should try HDParm again instead of APTimer after experimenting with the registry changes.

However, I now suspect that the BIOS firmware is controlling spindown power management. Some early AN5 BIOS versions had options to change this. The power management option was removed and fixed in later updated versions. What BIOS version do you have now?

per99

InsydeH20 v.1.13

Unless that is some kind of magic information, I'd rather continue my efforts with Ubuntu and WSL. Would you mind if I start a new thread / question and specifically ask for some basic information I need to execute the APMTimer? I have just spent three houers googling different Linux/Unix/Ubuntu/Bash commands, but it just won't work. But to me it appears as much more likely that APMTimer will work.

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