I have an old Toshiba that it works fine on.  I didn't change anything
either, it just worked.  Maybe you have a sketchy drive that doesn't work
well with the linux power saving stuff.  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marc A. Ohmann [mailto:marc at ds6.net] 
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 10:44 AM
> To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org
> Subject: [TCLUG] laptop hd standby
> 
> 
> Has anybody had any luck getting decent battery life from 
> linux laptops?  I can never get the hd to spin down for any 
> length of time because of all the random fs activity 
> especially on /var.  Without disabling syslogd, are there any 
> solutions to getting the hd to spin down?
> 
> hdparm -S 1 /dev/hda
> 
> doesn't work and is rather annoying because the disk spins 
> down and starts right back up -- probably using as much or 
> more power than if it had just stayed up.
> 
> I am concidering mounting /var on a ramdisk just before 
> suspend but I think sync'ing to the disk when it wakes up 
> would be tricky.  Remote sysloging is an option but doesn't 
> help me when I'm off the network.
> 
> any insight -- much appreciated,
> 	marc 
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