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From: kirkenda@psueea.uucp (Steve Kirkendall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Noisy drives
Message-ID: <1219@psueea.UUCP>
Date: 18 May 89 19:39:18 GMT
References: <8905160147.AA16219@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <832@ultb.UUCP>
Sender: news@psueea.UUCP
Reply-To: kirkenda@jove.cs.pdx.edu (Steve Kirkendall)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Portland State University; Portland OR
Lines: 19

On Mon, 24 Apr 89 00:09:18 PST, Dustin Baughman wrote:
>I have a VERY noisy internal drive in my 1040st which is about 2
>1/2 years old now.  Is there any way to quiet it?  Will putting a
>light oil on the "bars" that the head slides on help?  Is this bad
>for the drive?  The drive also seems to be "sluggish".  Any
>suggestions?

One thing you might try: increase the step rate of the drive.  Somebody
posted a small program to tweak step rates a few weeks ago.  Atari drives
usually step at 3ms, but I suggest you try 2ms.

I haven't tried this on 3.5" drives, but I know it can help with 5.25" drives.
I have an old Radio Shack Color Computer which normally steps drives at 30ms
(Ah, the good old days!) but is much quieter stepping at 6ms.

It's interesting that Mr. Baughman's drive "seems to be sluggish."  Does TOS
try to adjust its step rate at boot time, or does it always assume 3ms?
	-- Steve Kirkendall
	   ...uunet!tektronix!psu-cs!kirkenda