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Control your HDD's AAM/APM through registry


GrofLuigi

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AAM - Automatic acoustic management

APM - Hard Disk Drive Advanced Power Management

The problem:

I was annoyed by constant drive clicking (parking head) on my laptop (Intel ICH9M Sata AHCI controller). And I was not alone, judging from many user reports and questions on different forums. The drive in question is Seagate Momentus ST9250827AS.

The solution:

I tested hdparm and HDDScan, and finally settled for QuietHDD, which suited all my needs.

But the little bug was still biting me and wouldn't leave me alone. During one bootlogging session with RegMon (yes, Procmon didn't show it - it either starts later or it was my filters) I discovered...

The final and very elegant solution (for me):


 
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
"Port0AAM"=dword:000000fe
"Port0APM"=dword:000000ff
"Port1APM"=dword:000000ff
"Port1AAM"=dword:000000fe

These values are suitable for my needs - to turn off AAM and APM - get rid of clicking. Someone else might select other values. I used the ones which worked for a long time for me - taken from QuietHDD. Port1* are thrown just in case, since I don't think the DVD drive will mind. :)

Intel Matrix Storage Manager needed (version 8.9.4.1004 but I see no reason it wouldn't work on other versions), tested on XP/2003, might work on other Windows too (but I didn't notice the problem during my brief Vista testing so it's possible it "knows" how to control AAM/APM - or it constantly accesses the HDD so it doesn't have time to park :} )

In any case, it needs more testing (for other values), if anyone cares.

GL

Edited by GrofLuigi
fixed link 'other values'
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:angry: XP: Hard drive restores APM value after returning from standby mode (entered when the timeout of monitor power down expires in Power Options; no other timeouts defined). :angry:

I guess the controller driver is not consulted then (only on boot).

QuietHDD is necessary after all (this was one of its strengths and reasons for existence).

GL

Edited by GrofLuigi
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  • 9 years later...

Updating this thread for the people that will end up here through search engines:

 

In Windows 10 the registry key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorAC\Parameters\Device

Create a new dword value named EnableAPM with a 0 value and hdd head parking is gone.

 

Note that iaStorAC might be iaStorA or iaStorAV in some cases.

Edited by ekeda
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