Notebook Harddrive Noise

[Clayton]

I am trying to find a notebook harddrive without idle noise, it's driving me
crazy, it does it every 30 seconds or so, is there a way to stop this
without turning the computer off?
The drive is a Fujitsu MHT2080AH

Thanks

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am trying to find a notebook harddrive without idle noise, it's driving me
crazy, it does it every 30 seconds or so, is there a way to stop this
without turning the computer off?
The drive is a Fujitsu MHT2080AH

Thanks

It could be the CPU fan too. In my experience, some
notebooks are noisy (e.g. HP/Compaqs), some are
quiet (e.g. IBMs).

If you think it's your hard disk, examine your startup
tasks with msconfig.exe. You might have some
indexing task that you may not require.

 

[Clayton]

The noise is defenitly coming from the hard drive, someone said it maybe the
heads on the drive parking itself, I have indexing disabled, do you really
think it maybe a software application?

Sould I disable all non microsoft services and everything in startup under
msconfig?

Thanks

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Try some of these starting methods to narrow down the cause
for the disk activity:
- Start with everything disabled under msconfig.
- Start in Safe Mode.
- Start into the BIOS setup.

 

[Clayton]

Thanks Pegasus, I'll let you know what happens, I have already done the
first one and it still makes the odd noise now and then

 

[Clayton]

Hi Pegasus,
Running the system in safemode seems to be the same as normal mode, running
the system in the BIOS setup only did it once and is quiet as a mouse after
that, I had it running in the BIOS mode for about 30 mins.

In normal mode, the only processes running over 5,000K are
svchost.exe 16,496K
explorer.exe 10,928K
CCAPP.EXE 10,300K (part of Norton Antivirus)
wuauclt.exe 6,724K (which as just disappeared after writing this)

Putting my ear to the system I can hear the noise about every 10 sec's or so
but being about a metre away I can hear it every 30 seconds or so.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I would now launch the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) in Safe
Mode, select the Processes tab, then add the "IO Read" column
via the View pull-down menu. This should tell you which process
accesses the disk all the time.

 

[Clayton]

We have running

csrss.exe
lsass.exe
explorer.exe
svchost.exe
winlogon.exe
ZCfgSvc.exe
svchost.exe
System
services.exe
smss.exe
svchost.exe
taskmgr.exe

Where csrss.exe is the highest at 3,993 under I/O Reads and the following 2
are around 680

Might just be the way the hard drive operates?

 

[Clayton]

I think this maybe my problem:-

Head Reset noise is something many of you already know about. The head reset
function in the last couple generations of IBM/Hitachi drives (120, 180, and
250 GXP) is designed to avoid overheating during idle. The head reset causes
an odd, brief, very audible noise on a fairly regular basis, perhaps every
10 minutes. This noise has been described in many ways - a chirp, a cat's
meow, etc. To me it sounds like a two-tone whirrrr-hooot. The two drives'
head reset timing is not perfectly synchronized, so the noise from each
drive occurs usually in quick succession within maybe a minute of each
other. It is too brief a duration to be measured accurately on my sound
level meter. Suffice it to say it is easily as audible as the access noise.

Is there any notebook drives out there that don't do this?

 

[Rube]

Seagate's new momentus drives are very quiet. I have to put my ear to my
laptop to even hear if its spinning.

 

[Clayton]

Can you notice any noises when the system is idle?

 

[Rube]

My HD light does flash every minute or so, even when idle, but I can't hear
anything. I can't hear anything when its thrashing away either. The drive is
also brand new and my experience shows that after 2-3 years, bearings wear
out & the drive motor starts to be audible, even on the quietest drives.

 

[Clayton]

I have just brought the Seagate 100GB notebook drive and it makes more noise
acessing data that my Fujitisu did but hasn't made that 15 -20 second
clicking noise which I guess is a bonus.

I have just installed the drive and will let you know how it goes over the
next day or so.

 

[aus]

All seagates are noisy - they whine on their own from time to time but
they are probably the most reliable in my experience. I even complained
to Seagate Tech support but they were too stupied to know what I was
talking about.

The Hitachi 5000 rpm units are the quietest - no noise. I have installed
a couple of new IBM Thinkpad R51s recently and these are silent and use
Hitachi (formerly IBM) drives.

 

[Clayton]

I have tried using a 40GB Hitachi in my Toshiba Tecra 8200 which made alot
of intermittent noises, and went back to the original 20GB Toshiba drive
which was the best, what model of Hitachi are you referring too?

 

[aus]

Hi, Ill have to have a check to see exact model - but the ones I just
experienced were 60Gb Hitachi units as come as standard with the 1.8Ghz
Thinkpad R51. The standard one in my Thinkpad x31 was also quiet but ony
4200 rpm and I swapped it out to a faster - and noisier Seagate 7200
RPM unit.

 

[Clayton]

hmm, the 4200RPM drives in notebooks around 1999 - 2000 were quiet, but it
seems now that the 5400 - 7200RPM drives are noisier maybe the new
technology is the cause of it, out of the Fitjitsu, Seagate, Hitachi, the
only one that seems to not make that clicking noise as bad as the others is
the Seagate, someone suggested a Samsung but if I get that one, I know I'm
going to have similar issues, the drives that IBM use for the ThinkPad's are
about 3x the price of other drives.

I'll end up getting the Samsung and then a Western Digital to find they
maybe all the same.

Clayton