Question Is it normal... HDD spins up and spins down when display timeout after X amount of time 🤔

Tozzy2

Distinguished
Mar 2, 2013
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0
18,510
Sorry, it's difficult to explain, I haven't noticed this on laptops with SSDS for obvious reasons - no moving parts, but I've noticed two laptops of mine which have mechanical HDDs, which are running perfectly fine, but I'm concerned whether it's an issue... when the display times out and the screen goes blank due to preconfigured settings in the power plan... the hard drive sounds as though it's powering down, but then a second later, the hard drive will spin up again and this seems to be a constant loop until the LCD is 'woken up' again... Is it normal? Any settings I need to adjust? Please note, no crashing occurs or freezing, everything resumes perfectly fine. Any input greatly appreciated.
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
Maybe include a video with audio to corroborate what you're experiencing?

If you're working with Windows OS, there's an option within power plan to set when the computer goes to sleep, if you go into advanced settings/options for said power plan, you'll see the option to let the drive go to sleep as well. Perhaps both the sleep timeout for the display and the drive are the same or that you've merely set the sleep timer.

Make sure your drivers for your platform are all up to date and as is for your OS and your laptop's BIOS.
 
Sorry, it's difficult to explain, I haven't noticed this on laptops with SSDS for obvious reasons - no moving parts, but I've noticed two laptops of mine which have mechanical HDDs, which are running perfectly fine, but I'm concerned whether it's an issue... when the display times out and the screen goes blank due to preconfigured settings in the power plan... the hard drive sounds as though it's powering down, but then a second later, the hard drive will spin up again and this seems to be a constant loop until the LCD is 'woken up' again... Is it normal? Any settings I need to adjust? Please note, no crashing occurs or freezing, everything resumes perfectly fine. Any input greatly appreciated.
Look in the power plan for a setting that says...turn off hdd after.
Play with that see if it makes a diff.