11 January, 2007

GRT-815M - direct hard disk performance control

For use only with Travelstar disk drives (VAIO PCG-GRT815M model is shipped originally with a Hitachi Travelstar 80GB hard disk drive). Use Power Booster to directly control advanced battery life extender power settings.

I have used it only to confirm that I am running on highest performance profile (Power save: OFF) - wont help you much to extend the time running on battery... You will still have at least one fan that will continue to run constantly.

It could be useful if you use your computer as mobile to protect the hard disk by "parking" the heads when there is no I/O activity. The default performance profile (if you didn't change anything on the hard disk configuration) parks the heads after about 5s without I/O activity. This tool might actually help you to easily avoid the annoying clicking sound from the hard disk that is produced during the parking process of the heads - just slide toward performance to increase the time before the heads are parked. The full performance profile will never park the heads.

09 January, 2007

GRT-815M - noises that indicate a defective drive


There are various noises that may indicate a failing hard drive.

The Hitachi Hard Disk Drive Knowledge Base has some excellent examples of what your hard drive may sound like when it's going to die or it is already dead.

direct link to the section: Noises that indicate a defective drive

06 January, 2007

GRT-815M - Linux

Note: For some reason Google Search often links to this post that is not the most appropriate one. To find better suggestion use the blog search function.
Suse 9.0: (2004-2005)
An ancient distribution nowadays. nVidia drivers were not included, difficulties to mount USB drives etc.

Debian (Sarge): (2005-2006)
It was quite an improvement compared to the previous Suse 9.0 but didn't work with my PCMCIA wireless.

Gentoo: (2 days)
I use KDE. After 5 hours of compilation (kernel and kdebase) I tried to compile k3b - it was not enough so it asked for more - got a format... The installer was not clever enough to configure GRUB to coop with my Windows... took me me lot of nerves to find out the reason and fix it.

Kubuntu 6.06 (Dapper): (2006 - )
It is a pleasure to install and work with this distribution. There was a problem installing from the LiveCD desktop edition so I have done it from the text based alternate edition. Later 6.06.1 version probably fixes that issue. In both cases the initial hardware recognition reports that the BIOS has a well known bug! The guys implementing the KDE have managed to screw up the upgrading capability of this version so... I am stuck with t 6.06 for now.

nVidia drivers are included as restricted modules. Kernel updates are almost flawless. I have 386 & 686 kernels as options. Minor upgrades replaces the old kernels, but in case of major changes you get the new kernel while keeping the old intact and still functional!

USB mass storage works fine - it doesn't sync properly but I can live with it. Wireless is OK. Latest Skype 1.3.053 works excellent with the arts daemon.

You can control the brightness of the screen from KDE - there is a module for SONY laptops that works fine with the model. Volume and brightness buttons are not recognized (not bounded to any events - i did not bother to fix it since I don't use it that often). The special function keys are misaligned and not fully functional but better that any previous distribution.

If you change to powersaved daemon you will be able to change manually the performance profiles from the system tray where the battery information appears or automatically depending on the situation AC/battery power supply. You can even play with the HDD performance - if you have time to waste playing with the config files.

I have never managed to properly suspend or hibernate the computer (nVidia causes enough troubles). There are long guides how to shut down some services and restart them later, but if the only way to hibernate or suspend is to exit the X server (because of the nVidia) - I will rather turn off the computer. I have never found a way to switch or bring the signal to the external monitor after the X server is started (nVidia drivers and tools related problems).

Knoppix:
There was a problem with the version prior 3.5 that one must disable the ACPI support. Latest version 5.0.1 works like a charm - network, hot plugs... The DVD drive is not the fastest and it takes some time to boot and run programs. I have tried poor's man installation by copying the KNOPPIX folder on some of the partitions on the hard disk or on an external USB disk and then it flies. The internal HDD is not that fast so the option on the external USB works faster. The images for the DVD version are splited on files up to 2GB (it is actually DVD iso format restriction) so you can easily "install" it on FAT32. You can go further and copy the kernel files and put a option in the GRUB menu and then you can boot even without the CD/DVD. Having the Knoppix image on the disk is not only faster to run but you get your DVD device free for whatever reason you will need it.


Using GRUB to boot Knoppix images.

(I don't take any responsibility for any damage or etc. that your attempts might cause)
First copy the contents of /boot of the Knoppix CD-ROM to a boot partition on your hard drive, for example "/boot.knoppix". This partition may be ext2/3, reiserfs or even a vfat partition, all of which are supported by grub.

Copy the /KNOPPIX directory from the Knoppix CD-ROM to the top level (root, "/") directory of the file system on any hard disk or partition on your system.

Add and change accordingly the following to your /boot/grub/menu.lst :

title KNOPPIX 3.7 kernel 2.4
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/knoppix37/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 apm=power-off vga=791 from=/dev/hda6 lang=us keyboard=us home=scan
initrd /boot/knoppix37/minirt24.gz


Note: The parameter "fromhd=" is used to specify the disk location of the file system where you previously copied the /KNOPPIX directory.

04 January, 2007

clicking hard disk

The noise comes from the "parking" of the heads when HDD is idle. The problem is that moments after that the heads go back because of I/O activity then it parks again and again. I got that suddenly after 2 years of using my GRT815M. Interestingly enough, running the computer under DOS or Knoppix (Linux LiveCD distribution) did not reproduce the clicking nightmare... I will leave the conclusions for the reader.

Possible (brutal force) solution:
Check with some "S.M.A.R.T." tool the count of the "parks" - if this is the reason for the "clicks" it will increase the number after every click. Get to the HDD vendor web page and get the software they are providing to configure the HDD. In my case - IBM/Hitachi Feature Tool 2.01 [link] and read the manual. Usually it goes to a parameter they relate to performance or power save. Sliding toward performance increases the time before the HDD parks the heads. You can increase the value a little bit and it might work, otherwise increase more. Above some limit it will stop parking at all. If you are lucky to have Hitachi Travelstar HDD check this tool [link] that allows you to to change the Advanced Power Management (APM) level directly from Windows.

I use my "laptop" as a desktop replacement so I don't care that much if the heads are safely parked. Power saving is not an issue since on my computer there are so many other things that drain more power than the hard disk itself (I have 3 fans and one of them is constantly running - I have difficulties to classify this as a laptop).

One can do the same APM adjustments from Linux with hdparm -B /dev/hda etc.

from the "hdparm" manual: -B Set Advanced Power Management feature, if the drive supports it. A low value means aggressive power management and a high value means better performance. A value of 255 will disable apm on the drive.

Under Windows one can use this command line tool to check the SMART values:

http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/smart/smart.htm

As administrator (in "Command Prompt" window) run smart.exe

C:>smart.exe
SMART & Simple for Windows NT/2000/XP V1.01
Copyright 2001-2003 Craig.Peacock@beyondlogic.org
Opened Drive \\.\c: . .

SMART Enabled : Yes
Model Number : IC25N080ATMR04-0
Firmware Version : MO4OAD1A
Serial Number : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Drive Size : 80.026 GB

ID Attribute Type Threshold Value Worst Raw St
---- -------------------------- ----- --------- ----- ----- ---------- --
[01] Raw Read Error Rate Prefailure 62 100 100 0 OK
[02] Throughput Performance Prefailure 40 106 106 5825 OK
[03] Spin Up Time Prefailure 33 125 125 1 OK
[04] Start/Stop Count Advisory 0 98 98 3409 OK
[05] Reallocated Sector Count Prefailure 5 100 100 0 OK
[07] Seek Error Rate Prefailure 67 100 100 0 OK
[08] Seek Time Performance Prefailure 40 100 100 45 OK
[09] Power On Hours Count Advisory 0 84 84 7284 OK
[0A] Spin Retry Count Prefailure 60 100 100 0 OK
[0C] Power Cycle Count Advisory 0 99 99 1997 OK
[BF] Unknown SMART Attribute Advisory 0 100 100 0 OK
[C0] Power-Off Park Count Advisory 0 100 100 3 OK
[C1] Load/Unload Cycle Count Advisory 0 90 90 106573 OK
[C2] Drive Temperature Advisory 0 157 157 1179683 OK
[C4] Re-Allocated Data Count Advisory 0 100 100 0 OK
[C5] Pending Sector Count Advisory 0 100 100 0 OK
[C6] UnCorrectable Sector Count Advisory 0 100 100 0 OK
[C7] CRC Error Count Advisory 0 200 200 0 OK

During my clicking nightmare the parameter “[C1] Load/Unload Cycle Count” was changing every time I heard the click. This is a certain way to identify the reason for the clicks.

I will suggest this tool as well, since it offers more features:
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
C:>smartctl -A /dev/hda      #(Linux conventions)
will show you the device SMART vendor-specific attributes and values as the previous command line tool.

You can run some additional internal self-test in case you want to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the drive on the first place (you may continue to work while the test is running):
C:>smartctl -t short /dev/hda      #(Linux conventions)
smartctl version 5.34 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-5 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 2 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Mon Oct 9 10:23:00 2006


Use smartctl -X to abort test.

and after finishing (about 2 minutes for the short test) you may run the following command to check the result. BE CAREFUL WITH THAT TOOL!!!
C:>smartctl.exe -l selftest /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.33 [i386-pc-mingw32] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LB
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 7269 -
# 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 7149 -
# 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 6189 -
# 4 Short offline Completed without error 00% 5452 -
# 5 Short offline Completed without error 00% 5347 -
# 6 Short offline Completed without error 00% 5254 -
# 7 Short offline Completed without error 00% 5192 -
# 8 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 5186 -
# 9 Short offline Completed without error 00% 5184 -

P.S. You don't have to install anything in the both cases. You don't have to run the daemon part from the smartctl pakage to run the S.M.A.R.T. self-tests.

I have seen on Internet that this is not model or vendor specific. It appears that the problem is triggered by settings that set some services or program to write frequently to the disk. If your disk is set to park after 5 seconds of inactivity and there is a program that writes every 7 seconds - there you are.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking

Continue reading: clicking hard disk:II

GRT-815M - cleaning from dust

There are three fans in this model. Check the links to see some of them (if the pictures are still available). I might put my own pictures later.

Excellent snapshots from disassembled VAIO on the author's web page
http://www.sundigi.com/article/product/testpage.asp?ga_id=1032
http://www.sundigi.com/article/product/testpage.asp?ga_id=1035

You don't have to remove too much to reach the two of the fans. There is one screw on the left side that holds the black part over the keyboard (the one with the speakers). Release that, then slide left the black part - then you will be almost able to reach the second fan as well. There is one more screw in the middle that will be accessible when you remove the first (black) part, that holds the keyboard. If you unscrew that you have to just lift the keyboard - nothing to disconnect. This will be enough to clean those two fans perfectly. The one bellow the HDD -since you "know" where it is now - just air spray it through the holes from aside.

Hint: If you decide not to open the laptop use the air duster while the computer is running and spray from beneath - in the inlet AND AGAINST - through the outlet. You might have something stuck that can not go through the radiator! Blowing against the air flow will probably help to clean the main fan. Usually this is enough. You may try blowing through the opening just above the printer (LPT/parallel) port - there is the outlet from the second fan.

Continue reading: GRT815M - cleaning from dust II

GRT-815M - common temperature values

I have found on internet many people looking for referent data to check if they computers perform well. I have posted already couple of times the common values of the temperature sensors for the model in a previously mentioned user forum, but they are quite difficult to find. This is the main reason why I am writing this blog.

The values are for an idle computer running under Windows XP Home SP1 or SP2 (AC power): use Mobilemeter to get access to the readings of the sensor elements.
quote from my original post:

Recently (2006. Oct. 8) I have opened it and cleaned the dust that was accessible from what one can see under the keyboard and now when the computer is idle the CPU temperature is 45c (dropped from 47c before cleaning) - the temperature in the room is between 22 and 24 degree Celsius - about 40% humidity - (this is not a joke - it matters). Under heavy load the temperature goes up to 69c-70c and stays there. The HDD temp. is usually 35c and goes up to 39-40c under heavy I/O load. I get the same numbers under Windows XP and Linux.

P.S. Consider 45c as a record - I have never had this temp. since I bough it.