Robert Hancock wrote:
Gavin Cameron wrote:
Hi Robert,
Thanks for the quick reply ... comments below.
Robert Hancock wrote:
Gavin Cameron wrote:
Hi,
It's been a while since I've been in touch. I previously had 2
problems:
1. PATA DVD writer not working
2. Frequent HDD head unloads
I eventually caved in and replaced the PATA DVD drive with a SATA
and that works perfectly. However, this head unloading is really
annoying primarily because the noise the drives makes just doens't
sound healthy - it's a high pitch squeal and then a couple of clicks.
Can you tell which drive is doing it? I'm assuming it's not both.. If
you can figure out which one you can try some different APM values to
see if that helps anything. You could also try disabling the standby
timer in case that's doing it, with "hdparm -S 0".
If none of those help, there may not be a lot else you can do about
it. The OS really has no control over when the drive decides to
unload, other than those settings..
I can't be sure which drive is making the noise - it may be hard to
find out as one drive is the root file system and the other is /home
so both are normally needed (unless I do a bit of hacking). The noise
is the same every time, so it may be just one of them. As it happens,
/dev/sdb (the drive allocated to /home) is the older of the two drives.
The unloading itself is very predominant within the first 15 minutes
of the PC being powered - happening between 1 and 3 times a minute.
However, eventually it decreases to perhaps once every half hour. It
often happens twice in succession too.
Can you try doing smartctl -a on both drives before and after you hear
the noise and see if it seems to match up with any of the counters
changing?
Here's the build up:
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda > sda_start
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdb > sdb_start
... a few mins while noises go on ...
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda > sda_end
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdb > sdb_end
Here are the results:
diff sda_start sda_end
13c13
< Local Time is: Fri Apr 17 16:03:40 2009 BST
---
> Local Time is: Fri Apr 17 16:17:20 2009 BST
66c66
< 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0002 253 253 000 Old_age
Always - 17 (Lifetime Min/Max 9/38)
---
> 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0002 240 240 000 Old_age
Always - 25 (Lifetime Min/Max 9/38)
88a89
>
So nothing there apart from the temperature. However:
diff sdb_start sdb_end
13c13
< Local Time is: Fri Apr 17 16:03:42 2009 BST
---
> Local Time is: Fri Apr 17 16:17:26 2009 BST
57,59c57,59
< 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000a 199 199 000 Old_age
Always - 80
< 8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0027 246 238 187 Pre-fail
Always - 39281
< 9 Power_On_Minutes 0x0032 229 229 000 Old_age
Always - 710h+53m
---
> 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000a 199 198 000 Old_age
Always - 43
> 8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0027 246 238 187 Pre-fail
Always - 45449
> 9 Power_On_Minutes 0x0032 229 229 000 Old_age
Always - 711h+07m
65,66c65,66
< 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0032 037 253 000 Old_age
Always - 17
< 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x000a 253 251 000 Old_age
Always - 36907
---
> 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0032 037 253 000 Old_age
Always - 24
> 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x000a 253 251 000 Old_age
Always - 31779
70c70
< 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0008 084 001 000 Old_age
Offline - 768
---
> 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0008 100 001 000 Old_age
Offline - 768
72c72
< 201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age
Always - 0
---
> 201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age
Always - 2
100a101
>
Looks to me like this drive could well be on its way out! None of the
counters (Start_Stop_Count for example) were changing, but lots of CRC
and error counts are.
What do you think? Just a knackered drive and nothing to do with libata
at all?
Regards,
Gavin.
I've tried the following with no success:
sudo hdparm -S 0 /dev/sda
sudo hdparm -S 0 /dev/sdb
sudo /sbin/hdparm -B 253 /dev/sda
sudo /sbin/hdparm -B 253 /dev/sdb
sudo /sbin/hdparm -B 128 /dev/sda
sudo /sbin/hdparm -B 128 /dev/sdb
( as well as 254 and 255)
I know you're saying that there's not much else can be done from an OS
point of view, however ... this particular PC didn't make this noise
until kernel 2.6.19 (I think it was) that started using libata. Also,
it's a dual boot machine (although I hate admitting that to people -
but still need it for gadget firmware updates) ... and when it runs
XP, the drives never make a noise. Not that I'm trying to say that
Windows is any good for anything ... it's just an observation.
There was also the previous problem with the PATA DVD drive not
working. So I still believe that the libata kernel module has some
problems with this chip set (perhaps combined with particular drive
usage, I'm not sure).
Hopefully, there may be some other file or command output that I can
provide to you that will help to diagnose this. If so, please let me
know and I'll gladly provide it :-)
Best regards,
Gavin.
Anyway, a reminder of the basic system:
* ASUS M2V M/B (VIA K8T890 / VIA VT8237A chipset)
* AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
* SATA LiteOn DVD RAM/RW
* Ubuntu 9.04 (Beta) - kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
Since I last was in touch, I've converted the system to Ubuntu (I
was hoping that it was a Fedora quirk) with no change in head
unloads with either 8.10 or 9.04.
I've tried the following in /etc/rc.local :
/sbin/hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
/sbin/hdparm -B 254 /dev/sdb
Which makes no difference at all. Also, I tried setting 255, but
that also had no affect.
I've included all of the normal files that I think you may need:
sudo dmidecode > dmidecode.txt
sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda > hdparm-sda.txt
sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdb > hdparm-sdb.txt
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda > smartctl-sda.txt
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdb > smartctl-sdb.txt
lsmod > lsmod.txt
Hopefully you can find the root of the problem.
Best regards,
Gavin.
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