[arch-general] Hard disc clicks

[Rafael Beraldo]

Recently I got preoccupied with the hard disc clicking sounds I have been
hearing since I installed Arch Linux on my Asus 1201N.

Anyway, I remembered that there was an issue that could dramatically reduce
the life of the hard disc, then I looked up on Google and found this article
[1]. I ran smartctl -A and noticed that each time I heard a click, one was
added to Load_Cycle_Count. Then I ran hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda, but the Arch
Wiki [2] says that it is best to set a smaller value, like 128, if you move
your laptop a lot.

The thing is, 128 keeps the hard disc spinning down a lot. In fact, 254 is
quite noiseless, but as from 253 the clicking sound returns. I read this bug
page [3] but found nothing new. It is worth remembering that, sometimes,
when I'm watching a movie or TV show with mplayer, it stops for less than I
second, then I hear the disc spinning faster and the video continues.

So, how did you guys set the power manager with hdparm in your laptops? Does
anybody else have this problem? Since I move my netbook often, should I set
it to 128 even if it spins down more than four times a minute?

Than you all.

[1] http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking
[2] http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop#Hard_drive_spin_down_problem
[3] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pm-utils/+bug/361680

-- 
Rafael Beraldo
http://cabaladada.org