Hi, I have noticed lately that one of my hard drives turn on and off once every couple of minutes. I have the power saving setting to only turn off after 20 minutes. I have 3 hard drives and I'm pretty sure it is one of my 200GB SATA hard drives. I'm just concerned that if it keeps getting turned on and off so often that it's going to get worn out too quickly.

Any help appreciated.

Mattwizz3 :

Vista Home Basic
2.2GHz Sempron
1.5GB DDR400
GeForce 6800Ultra

When you say that you have the power saving setting to only turn off after 20 minutes, I assume that you mean under Vista. Check the BIOS to see if the Hard drives are set to turn off every couple of minutes, which would override the Vista settings.

I'm just concerned that if it keeps getting turned on and off so often that it's going to get worn out too quickly.

No it won't. MODERN HDDs are not significantly affected by frequent shut-downs. In the old days frequent shutdowns were considered harmful when HDDs did not automatically park their heads when shut off.

i_Xp/VistaUser

I checked the BIOS and all the power settings are disabled and there dosent seem to be any power setting related to the hard drives.

XpUser:
isn't it bad to have the HDD spin up all the time? I would say it can happen as often as 20 times in an hour.

I'm not sure if it is my C:\ drive or my other drive with the Page file on it. My IDE drive is always off until I try to access it (Which isn't very often) so its not that drive. Any other Ideas?

Mattwizz3 :

Vista Home Basic
2.2GHz Sempron
1.5GB DDR400
GeForce 6800Ultra

Had a similar problem on a clients machine and the problem wasn't OS related or BIOS.

Turns out this guy had 4 HDD powered by a small 300W power supply. The juice needed to operate the drives alone starved the system of power and his primary drive was cutting out under load which would cause the thing to crash.

Seems like the power to one of your other drives is being switched on and off from the power supply due to stress. Eventually the whole PSU will fail because of the load issue.

I would seriously look at upgrading the PSU to something more substantial like a 500W+ unit to ensure plenty of current is flowing through those connectors to your peripherals.

If your PSU is kinda old and perhaps a generic 300W as most seem to be on do it yourself boxes get a new decent quality power supply.

Coolmaster/Antec units are a nice start at the affordable end of the buying chart.

Any Society That Would Give Up Essential Liberty For Temporary Security Will Lose Both & Deserve Neither.

I appreciate the advice but I already have a relatively solid PSU. A 430W Cooler Master with dual 12V rails, 15A on each rail. It's only about 6 months old.

The hard drive only turns on and of during light use like using the internet or something. I'm not experiencing and restarts or crashes.

As I said before, I'm just worried that the drive will wear out faster because of having to spin up all the time.

Mattwizz3 :

Vista Home Basic
2.2GHz Sempron
1.5GB DDR400
GeForce 6800Ultra

Hi there.

I have the same problem.
I have 4 SATA HDD connected and 1 of the drives power off and on constantly.

I can confirm this is NOT a power supply issue. I had a 550W PSU and thought it could be the reson so i bought a special 1200W termal take psu and even do my system only consume under half that it still does it so dont trow your money out on bigger psu to solve this problem.

Did you find any solution for this problem as I would really like to have it stop powering up and down all the time?

No, still haven't solved the problem either.
Do you know know which drive is switching on and off? If so, Is it a 200GB Maxtor or Seagate hdd? I'm just wondering if its possible that its an issue with a particular model of hard disk.

Mattwizz3 :

Vista Home Basic
A7N8X-E Deluxe
2.2GHz Sempron
2GB DDR400
GeForce 6800Ultra

Right click the desktop,
Select personalize/screensaver.
At the bottom select "change power settings".
Under select power plan use "balanced".
Select "change plan settings"
look for "change advanced power settings"

you will see "hard disk/turn off hard disk after"
"setting (minutes)"
You can change the minutes to "never"
Hope this solves your problem.