iMac Hard Drive Spins Down Frequently?

[ppc_michael]

My mom has a 19" iMac Core Duo running Tiger. It's been fine up until lately, within the past month or so, when you can hear the hard disks spin down frequently.

It does not occur when the computer is in use, but after it's idle, it happens a lot. Sometimes every five minutes, sometimes every 15 minutes. It just seems to be too frequent.

I have posted a screenshot of the Energy Saver control panel.

Any thoughts? Is this a bad sign?

 

[ale500]

a 19" iMac Core Duo

There was no such model , there were 17, 20 and 24".

How do you know is the hard disk spinning down ? and not for instance the fans spinning down after heavy use ?. Your preferences clearly state not to spin down the hd.
Have a look at how much free mem do you have and the cpu utilization in active monitor and page-ins/page-outs. Maybe more memory or hd cleaning (removal of old/unused stuff to free-up space) is in order

 

[ppc_michael]

There was no such model , there were 17, 20 and 24".

Oops! Sorry, it's a 20".

What I hear is a click then a spin-down. I assume it's the hard drive because it's exactly the sound I hear when I eject my external LaCie hard drive. Then when it "comes back" a few minutes later, it's the "spin up" and a few click noises, just like when booting up the computer.

The hard drive has about 120 GB free (she basically uses it for e-mail and web access).

I've included screenshots from Activity Monitor right after I caught it spinning down. This is also the typical amount of usage: usually she just has Mail.app and maybe Safari open.