This is part of The Pile, a partial archive of some open source mailing lists and newsgroups.
Subject: Re: [OT] Noise (was: Leaving the computer on) From: "CH" <krikofer@cwnet.com> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 07:00:47 -0700 On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 07:13:28PM +1000, Dan Horth wrote: > > get yourself an imac - the current models are fan-less and silent... > [...] That's true but it is more expensive! > Hm, I'm still wondering how/if any machine with a spinning hard drive in > it can be noiseless - with my machines, in three out of four cases the > drives make more noise than the fan(s)... Newer hardware that started about 5 years ago or beyond a few years, they had been making hard drive that will stop spinning disks. You must setup the bios in CMOS for that. If your CMOS has the listing "Power Management" (NO, NOT WINDOWS) then highlight it then enter you will see "HD POWER DOWN:" and the ranges will be "NEVER" to "15 min" depending on your CMOS. Your hard drive must support it or it will keep spinning. I had a Seagate 260mb and it will not power down until I got myself Maxtor 1.6gb a few years ago and that powers down. The hard drive will turn on the instant you use it, just give it about 5 sec for the disk to spin up to speed. CH === Subject: Re: [OT] Noise (was: Leaving the computer on) From: "Bruce Bauer" <bruce@specialdevices.com> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 07:52:10 -0700 Check out http//www.tomshardware.com He recently did a hard drive comparison that among other things compares noise levels generated by the drives. > On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 07:13:28PM +1000, Dan Horth wrote: > > get yourself an imac - the current models are fan-less and silent... > [...] > > Hm, I'm still wondering how/if any machine with a spinning hard drive in > it can be noiseless - with my machines, in three out of four cases the > drives make more noise than the fan(s)... > === Subject: Re: [OT] Noise (was: Leaving the computer on) From: Thomas Ribbrock <argathin@gmx.net> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 16:32:31 +0100 On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 07:00:47AM -0700, CH wrote: [...] > Newer hardware that started about 5 years ago or beyond a few years, they > had been making hard drive that will stop spinning disks. [...] Oh, I'm aware of that - but it doesn't work with SCSI disks, AFAIK, as the BIOS spin down only goes for EIDE drives (correct me if I'm wrong - at least I've never been able to get SCSI hard drives to spin down that way). Problem is: The only machines with (E)IDE I have don't have "green" functions... :-} So, for me personally the solution will be: Keep old hardware and switch off when not in use. :-) === Subject: Re: [OT] Noise From: Thomas Ribbrock <argathin@gmx.net> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 17:36:15 +0100 On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 09:45:29AM -0600, Manuel Antonio Camacho Quesada wrote: [...] > A very simple thing you may try out is to place your computers, specially > tower cases, over a thin styrofoam base. This will usually free stresses > produced on the case due to vibrations and surface imperfections (the case > is usually located on a floor not perfecly leveled). Interesting suggestion, thanks! I might just give that a try! === Subject: RE: [OT] Noise (was: Leaving the computer on) From: "Juha Saarinen" <juha_saarinen@email.msn.com> Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 09:40:40 +1200 %-> Oh, I'm aware of that - but it doesn't work with SCSI disks, AFAIK, as %-> the BIOS spin down only goes for EIDE drives (correct me if I'm wrong - %-> at least I've never been able to get SCSI hard drives to spin down that %-> way). Problem is: The only machines with (E)IDE I have don't have %-> "green" functions... :-} %-> So, for me personally the solution will be: Keep old hardware and switch %-> off when not in use. :-) Yes, your SCSI drives won't spin down via BIOS; it seems to be a function of the OS instead. I've got two SCSI drives on this machine, running Win2K Pro, and can spin the drives down if I want to, one at the time. I vaguely recall Adaptec having some kind of SCSI utilities that would work with their cards, but they were Windows only. No source either. === Subject: Re: [OT] Noise (was: Leaving the computer on) From: "CH" <krikofer@cwnet.com> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 19:18:49 -0700 Oh, I'm aware of that - but it doesn't work with SCSI disks, Sorry, I was thinking of EIDE's. True BIOS does not have it (at least not on my machine). ===