laptop-mode in jaunty

**cnolanAU** · May 21st, 2009

Has anyone else noticed that laptop-mode is no longer activated when changing from AC to battery (even though it is enabled in /etc/default/acpi-support)? I need to manually run /usr/sbin/laptop_mode to have it detect that is should be active. Not sure if it's just me.

I figure I can modify the /etc/acpi/[ac|battery|resume|start|suspend].d/90-hdparm.sh scripts to run /usr/sbin/laptop_mode instead of doing nothing if they detect that laptop_mode is enabled, but I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do it. Is laptop-mode itself supposed to detect the power events directly, or does it rely on being called?

**Barry Carroll** · May 21st, 2009

I enabled laptop-mode and then found that it was spinning down my drive way too much for my liking. When I changed the idle timeout values they appeared to be ignored so I am leaving it alone for another bit until I can investigate it further.

**cnolanAU** · May 21st, 2009

That sounds consistent with what I'm seeing. It looks like laptop_mode doesn't get run with changes in power state, but the scripts that are run check to see if laptop mode is enabled, and if so they don't apply the default 'simple' hdparm settings. So effectively, if you enable laptop mode, nothing manages the power settings (thus if you boot on battery, hdds will be always aggressively power-saving, if you boot on AC, hdds will be always on).

**NESFreak** · May 22nd, 2009

Originally Posted by Barry Carroll

I enabled laptop-mode and then found that it was spinning down my drive way too much for my liking. When I changed the idle timeout values they appeared to be ignored so I am leaving it alone for another bit until I can investigate it further.

Same here. Laptop mode just ignored whichever setting i passed to /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf

Since there is no way of controlling the spin downs it does so every five seconds, probably screwing up my harddrive, apart from consuming an extra 10 watts according to powertop.

**Barry Carroll** · May 22nd, 2009

I also checked the drive's smart attributes and I could see that the Load_Cycle_Count was going up quickly. So if the values in the conf file are ignored then where are they set?

**cnolanAU** · May 23rd, 2009

Seems like the easiest and safest option for now is to disable laptop mode by going to /etc/default/acpi-support and setting

Code:

ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false

then rebooting. This will go back to the 'default' behaviour of setting all hdd power management levels to 254 when on AC and to 128 when on battery (which should stop any excessive parking issues while on AC at least)

Interestingly, there are related bugs that have been open for quite a while on the laptop-mode-tools package that don't seem to have a resolution, I'll try to follow this up.

**quoob** · August 15th, 2009

Any updated info on this matter? (Alternatively, any hints on where to look for Ubuntu's policy on laptop mode?)

**beruic** · August 21st, 2009

I ask the same.

Is the temporary fix still to edit all your /etc/acpi/*.d/90-hdparm.sh files, and turn laptop-mode off, or is there another way?

**beruic** · August 21st, 2009

Just checked my /etc/default/acpi-support, and it seems like I have
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false

Should I try to switch it on, or is the current recommendation to leave it off?

I am tired of my hard disk load cycling so much.