Add AHCI Link Power Management to Power Options in Windows

NOttawa · 23 Dec 2019

Here's a weird one: can the affects of this fix deteriorate over time?

I've had an issue with my W10 laptop hanging/freezing for 1.5-4 seconds based on load, I think. Almost always this happens with Chrome and seems to increase in frequency and duration as more tabs are open. On battery and plugged in. I perceive it as my cursor freezing or not being able to scroll then everything jumps to where it should be instantly.

I've tried different page file settings to no avail and deleting the Chrome local state file which also seems to work temporarily.

Your solution definitely causes the issue to go away for a prolonged time - so it's working - but it eventually comes back. I've tried the lowest and active settings.

This is a Lenovo X260 with an i5, SSD and 8 gigs of ram. This, and horrible latency issues when using my USB audio controller, is making me strongly regret getting what I thought was a powerful laptop.

Brink · 23 Dec 2019

NOttawa said:

Here's a weird one: can the affects of this fix deteriorate over time?

I've had an issue with my W10 laptop hanging/freezing for 1.5-4 seconds based on load, I think. Almost always this happens with Chrome and seems to increase in frequency and duration as more tabs are open. On battery and plugged in. I perceive it as my cursor freezing or not being able to scroll then everything jumps to where it should be instantly.

I've tried different page file settings to no avail and deleting the Chrome local state file which also seems to work temporarily.

Your solution definitely causes the issue to go away for a prolonged time - so it's working - but it eventually comes back. I've tried the lowest and active settings.

This is a Lenovo X260 with an i5, SSD and 8 gigs of ram. This, and horrible latency issues when using my USB audio controller, is making me strongly regret getting what I thought was a powerful laptop.

Hello NOttawa, and welcome to Ten Forums.

Windows Updates have been known to sometimes reset random settings back to default. I suppose this could be a possible cause of this setting got changed on its own.

You might also double check to make sure you have the latest drivers installed for all your devices.

klepp0906 · 31 Mar 2020

Hey brink - so the IRST drivers have been causing random soft-freezes for quite some time. I've stayed away from them for that reason. I'm currently committed to revisiting this and the sprinklings of info around the web all point to IRST ignoring the OS's power settings and LPM etc.

My drives sleeping is important to me. Would mucking with this (one potential recommended solution ala reddit) prevent drives spinning down?

Brink · 31 Mar 2020

klepp0906 said:

Hey brink - so the IRST drivers have been causing random soft-freezes for quite some time. I've stayed away from them for that reason. I'm currently committed to revisiting this and the sprinklings of info around the web all point to IRST ignoring the OS's power settings and LPM etc.

My drives sleeping is important to me. Would mucking with this (one potential recommended solution ala reddit) prevent drives spinning down?

Hey mate,

For that, you could set Turn off hard disk after below to a number of minutes you want.

Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10

klepp0906 · 31 Mar 2020

no no, thats what i dont want.

I want them to continue spinning down - but i'd like to be able to use the IRST drivers without the pc soft-hanging for ~5 seconds at random when a drive decides to spin up.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesnt.

the only workarounds ive found thus far is NOT using the intel driver, or NOT letting the drives sleep.

would prefer to avoid those so hoping that changing this will afford me a potential fix, while still allowing the drives to spin down.

- - - Updated - - -

whelp, nothing some good ole fashioned testing cant ascertain. Seems with it set to active, they still spin down.

That leads me to my next question... What DOES this affect if not the spinning down of drives?

Time will tell if this actually addresses the hanging.

I did compare HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorA\Parameters\Device and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorAC\Parameters\Device with the former being the driver used by intel on variants that "dont" soft-hang.

the latter is drivers that DO.

a pair of keys present for each sata port
Controller0Phy0DIPM
Controller0Phy0HIPM

all come with a value of 1.

Wondering if this somehow ignoring the HIPM setting which is evidently the windows default.

Brink · 31 Mar 2020

This affects the allowed SATA AHCI controller power management.

Usually, leaving this set to its default setting should allow the hard drives to turn off and spin down when idle for the number of minutes set.

klepp0906 · 31 Mar 2020

ok, so it wont bother affect anything from an m.2/nvme standpoint? purely the sata ports?

Brink · 31 Mar 2020

klepp0906 said:

ok, so it wont bother affect anything from an m.2/nvme standpoint? purely the sata ports?

Correct, just SATA ports.

klepp0906 · 31 Mar 2020

as always, appreciate your insight :)

D4ni3l · 06 Apr 2021

Additional information

Power Management for Storage Hardware Devices | Microsoft Docs

I am fighting to understand why windows wake up (Spin-Up) my noisy drives (Seagate IronWolf Pro) from time to time (more than 1 min per 24H) without real success

Device Maintenance Time
Because it is now possible for rotational drives to spend a significant amount of time powered down, Windows 10 also includes a mechanism that gives the drive some powered-up idle time (1 minute every 24 hours) to perform internal maintenance. This only occurs when the system is connected to AC power in order to preserve battery life and when the system is in Modern Standby in order to ensure disk activity is at a minimum. Device maintenance is not configurable.