Can't stop my harddrives spinning down

[PJay_D]

I've just replaced my old ASUS P7P55D and first generation i5 750 with a new ASUS Z97-P motherboard and i7 4790K processor; the board/CPU is a direct transplant into my Windows 8.1 system.

I have a single issue that's bugging me; with the old motherboard in situ the harddrives in the system would obey Windows 8.1's power profile, with the new motherboard I can hear the mechanical harddrives powering down and parking every few minutes and then spinning up again when needed.

I've set my Windows 8.1 power management profile to never shut down the hardrives, but this doesn't help. I have a 1Tb Hitachi drive and Western Digital 500Mb mechanical drive fitted (the OS is on a Samsung SSD).

I'm running the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers with Link Power Management disabled.

Any idea's how I can regain control of my harddrives?

 

[kanewolf]

There is something confused in the power management since you didn't do a clean Windows install. Anytime you do a motherboard swap you should do a clean Windows install to avoid nagging problems like this.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Introducing a different motherboard to an existing OS installation requires a reinstall if you want to avoid unusual behaviour. That's especially true where Windows 8/8.1 is concerned:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1877571/install-windows-motherboard-cpu-swap.html

 

[PJay_D]

I was intending to do a clean installation (Windows 8 then to 8.1 via Windows update). I booted from the Windows DVD which ran the usual loading drivers screen; I expected to go into the setup screen but my usual login screen was presented to me and when I logged in all the new drivers were in place; Windows behaved like a new installation (and had to be reactivated) but remained as 8.1.

The hard drive spin down/head parking occurs if I'm working in the BIOS so I'm not convinced that it's Windows.

The main change from the hard drives' point of view is that they're on at a SATA 6 ports (rather than 3).

I can't find anything in the BIOS regarding hard drive power management or handing power management over to the OS.

 

[Cvdasf]

Introducing a different motherboard to an existing OS installation requires a reinstall if you want to avoid unusual behaviour. That's especially true where Windows 8/8.1 is concerned:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1877571/install-windows-motherboard-cpu-swap.html

This is your problem +1

 

[PJay_D]

I still get the spinning down issues whilst going straight into the bios from power on.

 

[popatim]

What are the model#'s of your drives?

 

[PJay_D]

Thanks for your reply.

One is an old 1tb Hitachi drive and the other is 500mb Western Digital;I'll have to get back to you with the exact models.

It feels like the BIOS is doing it's own thing regarding spinning down the drives but I can't find any bios: options regarding this.

 

[PJay_D]

For reference the drives are a Hitachi HDS721010 1Tb drive, a WDC WD5000AZRX-00A8LB0 500 Mb drive; Windows 8.1 is installed on a Samsung SSD 840 Evo 250Gb SSD.

 

[popatim]

The WD is a green drive and nothing short of WD releasing new firmware will stop it from spinning down. This is why we only recommend these drives as storage drives.

the Hitachi should stop from spinning down if you set the hdd's to never sleep in the Advanced Power options but this will not prevent it from SMART testing (and making read noises) during idle time.

 

[fzabkar]

There are potentially several solutions, depending on the drive.

WD has a tool called wdidle3. There is also an open source Linux version, idle3ctl.

One software solution that has worked for many people is quietHDD. This application sits in the SysTray and disables APM both at power-on and after waking up from standby.

Stll another possible WD solution is APMtimer:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/apmtimer/

 

[popatim]

Thanks Fzabkar, I hadn't known they updated wdidle to work on the newer drives.

 

[fzabkar]

AFAIK wdidle doesn't work on some WD models. QuietHDD appears to work with everything (in a Windows environment). APMTimer was a tool developed by a WD user after some experimentation with his drive's firmware. I don't know exactly which parameters it affects, but the author confirms that it stops his drive from spinning down.

 

[PJay_D]

Thanks for the pointers; wdidle3 won't work under 64bit Windows but I'll explore the other options.

Thanks again.