Vista controlling my Hardware?

sugoi · 1 May 2007 at 00:06

This is strange and im struggling to work it out, ever since i installed Windows Vista on my PC, now and again i hear a sound like my PC is about to go into standby or my fans are about to turn off... then i have a look inside, and all my fans are still spinning - which is a relief, but im not sure what is slowing down (if any), not sure if its something to do with the power saving functions, but i have changed it to high performance... is it slowing my HDD's down or?

the sound i hear is like the sound when i just about to put my PC on standby, except i haven't... usually does this when im browsing the web or idling.... and then it starts up again (sounds like its going from standby to windows), when i do something more "resourceful"...

any ideas? :confused:

Clarkey · 1 May 2007 at 00:10

sleeping the hdd's.

sugoi · 1 May 2007 at 00:12

Clarkey said:
sleeping the hdd's.

What are the benefits of doing this? I'm guessing it doesn't work the Hard Drive as much, is there any setting for this in Vista?

EternalMovement · 1 May 2007 at 00:25

It just lets the hard drive/s have a break like you said.
Type in power on the start menu and change the plan settings for which ever power plan you currently have it set at in the advanced options, whilst your there you can change the start menu power button so it switchs off instead of sleep mode too if you want under the power buttons and lid option amongst other things

WotDa · 1 May 2007 at 00:28

I noticed one of my drives spinning down the other night, I thought it was just about to crash again.

sugoi · 1 May 2007 at 00:29

im guessing it's the "Turn off Hard Disk after: 20 minutes" thing... in the advance settings... i have 3 physical hard drives, so it's probably turning off one which i'm not currently using... so it's probably best to leave it as is then...

sugoi · 1 May 2007 at 00:31

WotDa said:
I noticed one of my drives spinning down the other night, I thought it was just about to crash again.

LoL... i kept thinking it was something to do with my PSU... was checking every fan in the PC afterwards

Ronaldo · 1 May 2007 at 00:37

lol that explains why i hear that noise too

EternalMovement · 1 May 2007 at 00:57

sugoi said:
im guessing it's the "Turn off Hard Disk after: 20 minutes" thing... in the advance settings... i have 3 physical hard drives, so it's probably turning off one which i'm not currently using... so it's probably best to leave it as is then...

Yeah thats the one. I,ve just left it alone here as well, its werid at first but you soon get used to it.

Clarkey · 1 May 2007 at 01:01

sugoi said:
What are the benefits of doing this? I'm guessing it doesn't work the Hard Drive as much, is there any setting for this in Vista?

purely for power saving, not using it? turn it off!

Theguy · 1 May 2007 at 10:12

aaaa, I thought it was something like that, slightly disturbing though isnt it, kept thinking my hds were failing! heh, cheers

Priapus · 1 May 2007 at 12:55

Is there any point in having it turn off? Surley if the hard drive kept turning on and off it would cause more strain on the drive then just leaving it on?

gareth170 · 1 May 2007 at 13:32

i keep "Turn off Hard Disk after: never" because i have 5hdds and it takes them 15 seconds to keep powering back on. and to be honest i don't think it does much good to the hdds keep turning off and on...

sugoi · 1 May 2007 at 15:01

Ice On Fire said:
Is there any point in having it turn off? Surley if the hard drive kept turning on and off it would cause more strain on the drive then just leaving it on?

thats what i would have thought.... might just turn this feature off altogether....