Does AIDA64 contribute to the WD Green LCC issue?

[myarmor]

Does aida64 wake the harddrives (unload heads) to read the temperatures, and is there a way to disable (or extend time between) the hd polling?

I'm asking because I have several WD green drives, and this seems to be similar to what was/is the issue with speedfan and aida64 runs

continously (displays on g15 screen, no hd items defined).

I installed 2x brand new WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 (1 in WD Elements 2TB, and 1 in a esata enclosure) yesterday, and the LCC count so far is 273 and 102.

Not sure if this is on the high side considering the time they've been used (about 16 hours).

Some info related to the issue

Regards

[Squall Leonhart]

spinup occurs when disk activity is performed, querying smart does not require the head to move from the parked position.

[myarmor]

spinup occurs when disk activity is performed, querying smart does not require the head to move from the parked position.

well, I was wondering since speedfan had this issue (i.e fast lcc count stopped after stopping/disabling speedfan), and based on the

description in the link, and the explanation at Here I wouldn't be too surprised.

"And polling SMART values does wake up a HDD from unload mode or spin it up if it's spun down."

The thread I mentioned is rather old, but it seems to be similar in behavior to what I see on my end.

After aida was shut down I've had my computer running for 8-10 hours (I think). Biggest lcc now 301 (28 increase).

Assuming it started at 0 when I first installed/added them it's quite a bit of slowdown I guess.

Refreshing the SMART page (F5, then reselect the "WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0" drive) with 10+ secs between each seems to increases the counter.

Edit: Some additional info regarding this from WDC (my drive is affected) here.

There is a link to a page linking to to wdidle3 there, but that download contains a strongly worded warning not listing my hd, so I don't dare use it.

[Fiery]

AIDA64 follows industry standards by reading SMART attributes (incl. disk temperature attribute) via standard Windows API calls just like any other Windows software. In case WD implemented the power-saving features (the head parking) in a way that the head unnecesserily moves everytime the SMART attributes are read from the drive, then IMHO it is a serious hardware implementation flaw that should be fixed in a form of a firmware upgrade for the affected WD Green drives.

However, the LCC can be minimized if you could adjust the polling frequency for the SMART disk temperature readout, hence we've decided to implement a new option in AIDA64 to help you fight the LCC issue easier. The polling rate is default 20 seconds, but you can raise it all the way up to 3600 seconds (1 hour) in 1 second increment. You can adjust the disk temperature polling frequency in AIDA64 / main menu / File / Preferences / Hardware Monitoring.

Please upgrade to the latest beta version of AIDA64 Extreme Edition available at:

http://www.aida64.com/downloads/aida64extremebuild1219sdk6ngm0yczip

After upgrading to this new version, make sure to restart Windows to finalize the upgrade.

Let me know how it works.

Note: If you raise the polling frequency too much, AIDA64 will be able to detect a potential disk drive overheating situation much later than when it actually happens, so make sure to try to find a balance between 20 seconds and 3600 seconds

Thanks,

Fiery

[myarmor]

@Fiery, thanks I really do appreciate the effort.

I agree with you in that it would be a firmware flaw. However, it seems it won't be fixed very soon.

Instead they seem to go as far as recommending so called "green" software, i.e software than can be adjusted

or is already made in a way so it won't be woken unnecessarily often.

I guess they haven't seen too many rma's with this as the cause, so they still haven't found the need for an update.

If that should change..

Now, even if aida does "contribute", if it doesn't poll smart data more often than it's set to do in prefs (unless its

a forced refresh, ie F5 on the SMART page), aida can be set so the effects would neglible at most.

I've currently set it to 1800 as I don't have very hot drives as they're storage not performanced drives, and they're

ventilated by more than one fan, so if they should stop, I probably have more serious issues than a drive being hot.

The new drives seems to be less than 30C most of the time and the others are <32C.

Edit: the drives went to sleep, even if aida was running and displaying lcd items (something its never done before),

but woke as soon as I clicked the summary page.

The latter should most likely be expected as it is a manual action, and not an automatic repeated action such as lcd/osd items and similar.

The lcd isn't set to display hd temps.

[vikingboy]

hi, i just registered and installed the latest version and found that displaying the OSD prevented my WD 750GB black 2.5" HD going to sleep.

Im using version 1.70.1400.

Setting the poll time too short a timeframe doesnt allow the drive to sleep effectively and setting it to long a timeout prevents accurate temp monitoring.

any sign of a better fix for this issue from either Aida or WD?

thanks

Ian

[Arctucas]

hi, i just registered and installed the latest version and found that displaying the OSD prevented my WD 750GB black 2.5" HD going to sleep.

Im using version 1.70.1400.

Setting the poll time too short a timeframe doesnt allow the drive to sleep effectively and setting it to long a timeout prevents accurate temp monitoring.

any sign of a better fix for this issue from either Aida or WD?

thanks

Ian

There have been several BETAs released since .1400, the latest is .1426

[Fiery]

hi, i just registered and installed the latest version and found that displaying the OSD prevented my WD 750GB black 2.5" HD going to sleep.

Im using version 1.70.1400.

Setting the poll time too short a timeframe doesnt allow the drive to sleep effectively and setting it to long a timeout prevents accurate temp monitoring.

any sign of a better fix for this issue from either Aida or WD?

thanks

Ian

AIDA64 uses industry standard Windows API calls to issue ATA commands, including the SMART attributes read command. The HDD temperature is one of the SMART attributes, hence you need to read the whole attributes block to measure HDD temperature. Some hard disk drives may be smart enough to provide the SMART attributes block even while the drive is sleeping, and so it wouldn't spin up the disks just to read the attributes. We wish all hard disk drives could do that Even more useful would be if there was a separate ATA call just to read the disk temperature, but nowadays most companies focus on SSD devices rather than HDDs, so I personally don't think such an improvement to any HDD would ever happen

In other words: in order to make your drive not wake up on every temperature readout, you would need a smarter HDD firmware I'm afraid. WD may be able to do that to their HDDs.