Of course, I have a laptop running XP SP3. A Dell Inspiron 6000.
I'm watching the temp on the CPU go up/down as I use the unit and the
cpu switches from 1.32 Ghz to 2 Ghz. Obviously cooling off at the
slower speed. All this is fine.

My question is, the HD heats up too. And I've tried setting the power
scheme to shutdown the drive after 3 minutes when on batteries.
However watching the HD light, it never stops blinking for more than 30
seconds, okay maybe 1 minute. So if there is constant (in my terms)
activity on the HD, how will it ever spin down? Seems like a useless
feature with Windows!

TIA.

Big_Al wrote:
> Of course, I have a laptop running XP SP3. A Dell Inspiron 6000.
> I'm watching the temp on the CPU go up/down as I use the unit and the
> cpu switches from 1.32 Ghz to 2 Ghz. Obviously cooling off at the
> slower speed. All this is fine.
>
> My question is, the HD heats up too. And I've tried setting the power
> scheme to shutdown the drive after 3 minutes when on batteries. However
> watching the HD light, it never stops blinking for more than 30 seconds,
> okay maybe 1 minute. So if there is constant (in my terms) activity
> on the HD, how will it ever spin down? Seems like a useless feature
> with Windows!
>

Yes, attempting to apply that feature to the primary drive would be an
exercise in futility. Only way to shutdown the primary drive is to put
the laptop in standby.

There are evidences that Win7 behaves much better wrt. power management,
especially on new portables with hybrid drives - unfortunately this is not
heplful for you.
-- pa


"Big_Al" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Of course, I have a laptop running XP SP3. A Dell Inspiron 6000.
> I'm watching the temp on the CPU go up/down as I use the unit and the cpu
> switches from 1.32 Ghz to 2 Ghz. Obviously cooling off at the slower
> speed. All this is fine.
>
> My question is, the HD heats up too. And I've tried setting the power
> scheme to shutdown the drive after 3 minutes when on batteries. However
> watching the HD light, it never stops blinking for more than 30 seconds,
> okay maybe 1 minute. So if there is constant (in my terms) activity on
> the HD, how will it ever spin down? Seems like a useless feature with
> Windows!
>
> TIA.