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From: hdrw@ibmpcug.co.uk (Howard Winter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,connect.audit
Subject: Re: Followup to "IDE hard drive pauses... sometimes."
Message-ID: <1991Jun30.214602.24635@ibmpcug.co.uk>
Date: 30 Jun 91 21:46:02 GMT
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Lines: 37

I don't know if this is a complete red herring, but I was sitting
near a machine we'd had installed for a client (a Compaq 386/N as I
remember) and the hard disk powered itself down.  Now I'm used to
this happening on laptops, but in a desktop machine it surprised me.
When I did something which needed the disk, it ran up again and
acted as if nothing had happened apart from the time taken to
spin up to speed - just like a laptop.  The drive fitted is a
Conner 40MB  3 1/2" low profile (about 1" thick) - just like you
might find in a laptop. 

Various thoughts occur to me:

1.  Could it be that the drive itself has a power-down timeout period ?
2.  What if a laptop-destined drive with the above feature was
    fitted to a desktop machine by mistake ?
3.  What if there is a jumper on the drive which activates this
    feature, and was accidentally activated on a desktop machine ?
4.  Could there be a signal-line or a command which tells the drive
    to power down, and it was set/sent in error ?

How do laptops stop the disk anyway - surely not just by chopping
the power ?

Conner drives run very quietly normally - would someone in a noisy
environment notice if the drive stopped, apart from the 20-second
delay while it spins up ?

Just my tuppenceworth -

Howard.

-- 
Automatic Disclaimer:
The views expressed above are those of the author alone and may not
represent the views of the IBM PC User Group.
-- 
hdrw@ibmpcug.Co.UK     Howard Winter     0W21'  51N43'