The Advanced Power Management feature (APM) present in virtually all modern hard disk drives is aimed to save energy and power consumption by regulating the performance of the hard disk drive. Power consumption is reduced by adjusting spin speeds and disabling internal components when not in use. Aggressive power saving settings allow the hard disk drive to stop its spindle motor and park heads more frequently, which allows saving as much energy as possible, but put stress on mechanics and leads to delays on drive reads caused by waiting the magnetic disks to spin up to the necessary speed. In other words saving energy is achieved by decreasing performance and to a certain extent shortens drive life.
HDD APM and hard disk drive clicking sounds
Many users have reported a problem with hard drive clicking, sometimes described as a repeating tick tick tick type of ticking sound, or a faint beep at random intervals. The click sound is usually caused by the drive parking its head. There are multiple causes for that, including power management and shock detection.The clicking sound occurs only when the drive is idle. Forcing the drive to be busy delays ticking. Launching programs that access the hard drive, such as indexing or defragmenting the drive, helps for a while. Of course there is always a better option. As clicking sounds are related to drive head parking it is possible to completely eliminate them by changing the Advanced Power Management (APM) settings and taking control over operation of hard disk.
The solution:
You may use the hdparm app to configure or turn off power management of the harddisk drive.
Download hdparm for Windows 7, 8, XP, Vista, 2000
The installation package contains:
- Hdparm executable for 64bit Windows v.6.9
- Automated scripts for changing Advanced Power Management (APM) settings easily via Start Menu shortcuts
- Startup entry for APM configuration on Windows boot
Via the Start Menu shortcuts you are able to:
- configure APM settings of your primary harddisk drive for max battery usage, for fastest hard disk performance or APM disabled.
- to configure APM settings of secondary or third harddisk if such hardware is present on your computer (see More shortcuts link in the Start Menu).
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| Predefined command script |
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| Start menu shortcuts |
See also:
HDPARM - HELP & HOW TO HDPARM SETUP on Windows 7, 8 and Vista
