The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Free Fall Sensor & SSD Drives

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by DeeX, May 7, 2015.

  1. DeeX

    DeeX THz

    Reputations:
    254
    Messages:
    1,710
    Likes Received:
    907
    Trophy Points:
    131
    Does anybody know if it is proper to disable the free fall sensor when you swap out the normal Hard Drive for a SSD drive? Are there pros and cons to leaving this enabled?
     
    DeeX, May 7, 2015
    #1
  2. Mr. Fox

    Mr. Fox BGA Filth-Hating Elitist®

    Reputations:
    37,255
    Messages:
    39,348
    Likes Received:
    70,738
    Trophy Points:
    931
    It makes no difference in behavior or performance. You do not need to make any changes for SSD.
     
    Mr. Fox, May 8, 2015
    #2
  3. Mr.Koala

    Mr.Koala Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    568
    Messages:
    2,307
    Likes Received:
    566
    Trophy Points:
    131
    It does make the interface hang unnecessarily at times. Though you probably will never notice it.

    I do remember some old ThinkPads with free fall sensors that are way too sensitive and hurt performance. But I'm not aware of any AW with that problem.
     
    Mr.Koala, May 8, 2015
    #3
  4. CGSDR

    CGSDR Alien Master Race

    Reputations:
    285
    Messages:
    1,477
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    56
    So if I want to disable it, can you show me how?
     
    CGSDR, May 8, 2015
    #4
  5. Mr. Fox

    Mr. Fox BGA Filth-Hating Elitist®

    Reputations:
    37,255
    Messages:
    39,348
    Likes Received:
    70,738
    Trophy Points:
    931
    There is no manual control that I know of. You could uninstall the driver or disable it in Device Manager.
     
    Mr. Fox, May 8, 2015
    #5
    CGSDR likes this.
  6. Spartan@HIDevolution

    Spartan@HIDevolution Company Representative

    Reputations:
    39,619
    Messages:
    23,562
    Likes Received:
    36,877
    Trophy Points:
    931
    Unfortunately even if u disable it and reboot it would still get enabled again :(

    You can install the driver manually from the device manager by pointing it to where the installation files are located but I don't know of then if it would always be enabled or would it be I active since it's software is not present
     
    Spartan@HIDevolution, May 8, 2015
    #6
  7. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

    Reputations:
    9,436
    Messages:
    58,194
    Likes Received:
    17,909
    Trophy Points:
    931
    You could remove it and select "remove drivers" when removing it, or just don't drop it quickly.
     
    Meaker@Sager, May 9, 2015
    #7
  8. CGSDR

    CGSDR Alien Master Race

    Reputations:
    285
    Messages:
    1,477
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I remove the driver from Device Manager, but it come back every time the computer reboot.
     
    CGSDR, May 9, 2015
    #8
  9. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

    Reputations:
    9,436
    Messages:
    58,194
    Likes Received:
    17,909
    Trophy Points:
    931
    Did you set windows to not automatically download drivers and select the option to uninstalling the driver when removing it?
     
    Meaker@Sager, May 10, 2015
    #9
    CGSDR likes this.
  10. Tinderbox (UK)

    Tinderbox (UK) BAKED BEAN KING

    Reputations:
    4,745
    Messages:
    8,513
    Likes Received:
    3,823
    Trophy Points:
    431
    So what happens if you are writing a big file to your ssd, video file ect, and the notebook is knocked, what happens to the file it was writing?

    John.
     
    Tinderbox (UK), May 10, 2015
    #10
  11. Mr.Koala

    Mr.Koala Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    568
    Messages:
    2,307
    Likes Received:
    566
    Trophy Points:
    131
    It will delay the write a little bit. You won't feel anything.
     
    Mr.Koala, May 10, 2015
    #11
  12. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

    Reputations:
    9,436
    Messages:
    58,194
    Likes Received:
    17,909
    Trophy Points:
    931
    Think of it like hitting the pause button and then resuming as normal conditions are back. It was meant not just for drops but picking up the machine rapidly too which in a mech HDD could crash the heads into the platter too.
     
    Meaker@Sager, May 10, 2015
    #12
  13. Mr.Koala

    Mr.Koala Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    568
    Messages:
    2,307
    Likes Received:
    566
    Trophy Points:
    131
    To be more specific, when the system detects movement it will inject a non-queued IDLE IMMEDIATE command to the device. When this is received, a properly programed HDD would ignore remaining commands in the queue and park the header. The command has a time out. If no further idle commands are received, after the timeout the header would resume to last working track and the queue would resume.

    A (S)ATA SSDs should pause operation with this command as well. Because SSDs have almost no seek time compared to HDDs, all the time you lose is just the timeout. As for how long the timeout is, I'm not sure but it's OS-dependent.
     
    Mr.Koala, May 10, 2015
    #13
  14. CGSDR

    CGSDR Alien Master Race

    Reputations:
    285
    Messages:
    1,477
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Now I know why it keep coming back, because I didnt check that option (Delete the driver software for this device) I only reject the device. Now it's gone (well not really, it shown as unknown device now) for good, thanks man :)
     
    CGSDR, May 10, 2015
    #14