[ltp] high disk temperature Issues in T23

[Pedro Ribeiro]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Paul Seelig <pseelig@rumbero.es> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> this message is aimed mostly at sharing the solution i found for a too
> high disk temperature with a ThinkPad T23. Sorry in advance for the
> chatty prose style.
>
> I am the proud owner of an old T23 (2647-9RG), which has been maxed out
> to 1GB RAM and a 160GB Seagate ST9160821A PATA disk. The replaced PATA
> disk (60GB Seagate ST960822A) was already a replacement of the original
> 40GB drive delivered with the ThinkPad, and is now used as a secondary
> data disk in the UltraBay. The system is running a Debian supplied
> kernel 2.6.31.5 with bleeding edge Debian/unstable packages. While there
> is still a legacy WinXP partition, it is only booted once in a while to
> fetch and install the latest security updates, but isn't used for almost
> nothing else. So much for the scenario.
>
> Now for the problem: I have received two warning mails by smartd
> regarding a failing disk, and it pointed to an excessively high
> temperature event for the newer and bigger 160GB hard disk. Caught by
> surprise, i learned that there was a temporary peak of 56 Celsius
> degrees at least two times, and i also noted that this disk was usually
> running at around 50 Celsius degrees most of the time, albeit while
> being mostly idle as revealed by iotop. The Ultrabay disk was usually at
> around 40 Celsius degrees. A long running self test for the large disk
> didn't show any further issue other than that temporary heat peak.
>
> Running the machine for testing purposes in WinXP for a few hours, the
> disks usually idled at 45 and 36 degrees, respectively. I downloaded and
> ran the WinXP Seatools from Seagate, verifying that both disks are
> perfectly fine. Trying to increase the heat in WinXP, i had to put some
> load by running a full virus scan and a defrag session in parallel. But
> even under these circumstances the heat level "only" reached 49 degrees.
> So the expected culprit was to be found in Linux only.
>
> As i am in holidays at the moment, i was able to invest considerable
> time searching the web for possible troubleshooting hints. And i was
> surprised to find out, that this issue was related to the not so recent,
> but still standing click of death issues, which are mostly related to
> Ubuntu Linux but apply to Linux in general. In the past i had to disable
> the disk APM because of this very issue, and was not aware that, while
> the excessive Load_Cycle_Count would be put on hold, this would result
> in a considerable temperature increase for the affected disks.
>
> So i experimented a bit with the hdparm -B values for both disks, and
> was finally able to have them both running at around 43 and 32 degrees,
> with the larger and newer drive taking the higher temperature. The
> hdparm value which seems to offer the best balance between a drastically
> reduced Load_Cycle_Count and the lowest possible temperature turned out
> to be somewhere around 192, but i didn't experiment any further:
>
> [root]~ # /sbin/hdparm -B /dev/hda
>
> /dev/hda:
> =A0APM_level =A0 =A0 =A0=3D 192
> [root]~ # /sbin/hdparm -B /dev/hdc
>
> /dev/hdc:
> =A0APM_level =A0 =A0 =A0=3D 192
>
> [root]~ # hddtemp /dev/hda
> /dev/hda: ST9160821A: 43=B0C
> [root]~ # hddtemp /dev/hdc
> /dev/hdc: ST960822A: 32=B0C
>
> I had to adapt the /etc/acpi/start.d/90-hdparm.sh script from the
> acpi-support Debian package at line 35 to replace the 254 value with
> 192, in order to have this setting survive reboots:
>
> [...]
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0if [ "$STATE" =3D "BATTERY" ] ; then
>
>
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0hdparm -B 128 $dev
>
>
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0else
>
>
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0hdparm -B 192 $dev
>
>
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0fi
>
>
>
> [...]
>
> I am aware that this can not be a general recommendation, as the best
> value depends on the particular drive, whether it is a PATA or SATA
> drive, etc. For example, both SATA disks in my usual T61 work horse
> rarely get any warmer than 36 degrees, and seem never to touch the 40
> degree boundary.
>
> I would appreciate any feedback regarding further possible temperature
> decreasing measures. And yes, i already ensured that there is no dust
> inside which could obstruct any airflow.
>
> Cheers
> P. *8^)
> --
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
> http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-thinkpad
>

This is really interesting. It shows that this click of death thing is
still very present. I wonder what the APM settings for Windows are?