help with HD spin diagnosis

[itchyneebanshee]

Hi,

I'm trying to determine why a hard drive will spin down,
then pause, then spin up. I've owned it for more than a few years
and its never done that before.

I ran dx tests on the drive and it passed ok.
I do have a UPS APC 650 400watt power supply that I plug
the computer into. Recently I added some speakers that
are 75 W each. The power supply in the computer is 400w.
Since that would be a total of 550W, could that cause the
hard drive spinning down and back up? I'm not sure
if the '400w' rating on the UPS has to be taken that literally
unless the power completely gets turned off. Since its
intermittent its hard to determine what it is. Dangit!

If its not the UPS I guess its some loose power connection
or power cable that needs replacing inside the computer.

I have one of those TRIOS drive selectors, and regardless
of which drive I boot to, I hear the drive spin down *occasionally
and the system pauses. Then it spins back up. TRIOS people
are unavailable, no website/email, but I don't think its the
TRIOS.


itchy

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm trying to determine why a hard drive will spin down, then pause, then spin up.

Its usually the drive itself deciding to do that, not some external factor like the power supply that causes that sort
of effect.

I've owned it for more than a few years and its never done that before.

I ran dx tests on the drive and it passed ok.

Presumably that means that it doesnt spin down and back up very often.

I do have a UPS APC 650 400watt power supply that I plug
the computer into. Recently I added some speakers that
are 75 W each. The power supply in the computer is 400w.
Since that would be a total of 550W, could that cause the
hard drive spinning down and back up?

Nope, because the 400W rating on the power supply in the computer
is the maximum it can supply not what its actually drawing in your computer.

I'm not sure if the '400w' rating on the UPS has to be taken
that literally unless the power completely gets turned off.
Correct.

Since its intermittent its hard to determine what it is. Dangit!

Yeah, intermittents can be a complete plain in the arse.

One obvious approach is to plug the computer into the mains
without the UPS and see if you ever get the spin downs and
spin ups in that config. If you dont, the UPS could be the
problem, but thats unlikely because if it was, you'd expect
the whole system to shut down, not just the drive spin down.

If its not the UPS I guess its some loose power connection
or power cable that needs replacing inside the computer.

Thats certainly possible. Particularly with the older molex
power connectors to the drive, the metal tunnels the pins
go into can open up over time and not make good contact.

The easy test for that possibility is to swap the connector
for one thats currently being used for an optical drive and
see if that makes the problem go away.

I have one of those TRIOS drive selectors, and regardless
of which drive I boot to, I hear the drive spin down *occasionally
and the system pauses. Then it spins back up. TRIOS people
are unavailable, no website/email, but I don't think its the TRIOS.

It could very well be that. Try it with the drive directly connected
to the power supply in the computer, with no TRIOS involved.

 

[Bob Willard]

Hi,

I'm trying to determine why a hard drive will spin down,
then pause, then spin up. I've owned it for more than a few years
and its never done that before.

I ran dx tests on the drive and it passed ok.
I do have a UPS APC 650 400watt power supply that I plug
the computer into. Recently I added some speakers that
are 75 W each. The power supply in the computer is 400w.
Since that would be a total of 550W, could that cause the
hard drive spinning down and back up? I'm not sure
if the '400w' rating on the UPS has to be taken that literally
unless the power completely gets turned off. Since its
intermittent its hard to determine what it is. Dangit!

If its not the UPS I guess its some loose power connection
or power cable that needs replacing inside the computer.

I have one of those TRIOS drive selectors, and regardless
of which drive I boot to, I hear the drive spin down *occasionally
and the system pauses. Then it spins back up. TRIOS people
are unavailable, no website/email, but I don't think its the
TRIOS.


itchy

If those 75W speakers are rated as 75W PMPO, then they are probably
about 5W RMS; not enough to worry about. PMPO is an advertising
invention, barely related to reality -- see Wikipedia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_power and look for the section
labeled "Actual ratings compared"

You might want to download and run HDtune for your HD -- it has a
Health tab, and its Error Scan might find something.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi,

I'm trying to determine why a hard drive will spin down,
then pause, then spin up. I've owned it for more than a few years
and its never done that before.

I ran dx tests on the drive and it passed ok.
I do have a UPS APC 650 400watt power supply that I plug
the computer into. Recently I added some speakers that
are 75 W each. The power supply in the computer is 400w.
Since that would be a total of 550W, could that cause the
hard drive spinning down and back up? I'm not sure
if the '400w' rating on the UPS has to be taken that literally
unless the power completely gets turned off. Since its
intermittent its hard to determine what it is. Dangit!

If its not the UPS I guess its some loose power connection
or power cable that needs replacing inside the computer.

I have one of those TRIOS drive selectors, and regardless
of which drive I boot to, I hear the drive spin down *occasionally
and the system pauses. Then it spins back up. TRIOS people
are unavailable, no website/email, but I don't think its the
TRIOS.

Sounds like a problem with the power connectors. One thing that
can help is to tap on all possibly defective components.
It is by no means a reliable approach, but sometimes you
can localize faulty connections that way. It just takes a very
short outage (say, 1 ms) to cause a drive to spin-down.
The outage also does not nee to be on both power lines
(+5V, +12V), one is enough. Because of the shortness,
usinf conventional measuerement equipment does not really help.

Arno