is it me or are Maxtors total crap?

[John Smith]

I purchased a few things from Overclockers.co.uk earlier today (not HSF).

I got the grommets and two rounded IDE cables (heat build

up is another problem with my machine). Am considering ripping off the sound pads from side panel.

Their Zalman was currently out of stock.

I think the majority of noise is coming from the hard disks.

After I fit those grommets, I will consider getting it also.

I have an Asus A7V8X with a AthlonXP 1800. Not sure about case but I don't think PSU will be a problem.

Thanks.

Your motherboard is NOT listed as having a problem with the Zalman HS on
their site so it looks good. You never know for certain though until you try
and fit one.

Go to http://www.zalmanusa.com/ and take a look at the page for it.

Yes, you have to slowly eliminate noise - sometimes you find you eliminate
one noise only to find it was masking another annoying noise and so you
start again

John.

 

[Daniel P]

I don't know. Maybe it was 2001. I not really one of those people with a
good memor........What was I talking about?

 

[mr potatohead]

Acoustic foam does work. I used some in a portable digital recorder with
great results. Only problem is things will run hotter since the sound
waves are converted into heat. You need good airflow.

This is not acoustic foam, but it's supposed to be very good:

http://www.b-quiet.com/brownbread.html

 

[mr potatohead]

I had a Seagate 4-5-10 MB (?) that worked better with the cover off. The
problem was that it would overheat. If I ran norton disk doctor with the
cover on, about half the drive would develop bad sectors, with the cover
off, a lot less.

 

[John Smith]

I've used that - all I can say, IMPO, is that I would spend my money on
something useful if I had my chance again. It is incredibly sticky black
bitumen on the back of shiny paper. You have to use a stanley type knife to
cut it, the bitumen gets stuck on your hands, your clothes, everywhere. Once
you stick it into your PC you really only have one chance at getting it
right as it darn impossible to reposition. I would say the affect it had,
IMPO, on noise reduction from my PC was next to nothing although, no doubt,
some sensitive scientific istrument would have noticed a difference. I did
not.

 

[Alex]

Acoustic foam does work. I used some in a portable digital recorder with
great results. Only problem is things will run hotter since the sound
waves are converted into heat.
LOL!

You need good airflow.

Alex

 

[kony]

Acoustic foam does work. I used some in a portable digital recorder with
great results. Only problem is things will run hotter since the sound
waves are converted into heat. You need good airflow.

No, conversion of the sound waves to heat is a trivial heat rise. That
would not be a problem unless there was already marginal->insufficient
cooling.

 

[Rob Morley]

Acoustic foam does work. I used some in a portable digital recorder with
great results. Only problem is things will run hotter since the sound
waves are converted into heat.

That's not the problem - the sound energy involved is negligible. What
actually happens is that the foam acts as a thermal insulator, so heat
that is normally lost through the case walls must now be removed by the
fans. That's not a problem if you have adequate air flow, both in
quantity and quality - there's a danger of hot spots if any component
that produces a significant amount of heat is sitting in dead air.

 

[Rick]

Please trim rec.photo.digital from future responses to this thread.

Thank you.

 

[half_pint]

I would expect so at that price.

Selling spound proofing stuff is a bit like anti wrinkle cream
a conmans paradise.

Try some old newspaper or something and save wasting your money.

 

[half_pint]

That's not the problem - the sound energy involved is negligible. What
actually happens is that the foam acts as a thermal insulator, so heat
that is normally lost through the case walls must now be removed by the
fans. That's not a problem if you have adequate air flow, both in
quantity and quality - there's a danger of hot spots if any component
that produces a significant amount of heat is sitting in dead air.

Yea the insulation will increase the geat and cause to fan to work
harder, a chihcken and egg type situaion.
I stuffer some old newspapers inside my case, it reduced the noise
a bit but it increase the noise at the fan ducts (relatively at least)
now I could reduce the noise a lot if I I blocked up the fab ducts
but I don't think thats a very good idea.
In fact sticking a folded newspaper over the fan duct reduced sound by
about 75%

 

[Rick]

Please trim rec.photo.digital from future responses to this thread.

Thank you.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

Had my first Maxtor failure in three years yesterday despite about 75%
of the drives I've brought in the last five or six years being Maxtor.

Filled in the Advanced Replacement form yesterday and they shipped the
replacement drive today so the warranty is damned good too!

To follow-up my own post, the replacement arrived yesterday AM, one
working day after raising the RMA.

--

 

[Paul Hopwood]

how does this advanced replacement thingie work? i have two OEM 160gb SATA maxtos.

They take your credit card details for security and ship the
replacement drive straight out to you, before you return the faulty
one.

Besides getting the replacement much quicker, it takes any pressure
off you to get the faulty one back to them (they give you 30 days
before they charge your card for the replacement), you can get the two
drives side-by-side to transfer data of the faulty one if it's still
readable and you have the correct type of packaging in which to send
the old one back.

--

 

[Midnight Moocher]

What do you guys think of this? If I leave the side panel off, there will be less heat build up allowing me to disable a fan and cut
down in noise.
That kills two birds with one stone doesn't it?

Good idea or bad idea?

 

[Mike Henley]

They take your credit card details for security and ship the
replacement drive straight out to you, before you return the faulty
one.

Besides getting the replacement much quicker, it takes any pressure
off you to get the faulty one back to them (they give you 30 days
before they charge your card for the replacement), you can get the two
drives side-by-side to transfer data of the faulty one if it's still
readable and you have the correct type of packaging in which to send
the old one back.

Do i need to register for something like that when i buy the drives,
or will just having the receipts do, or do they keep data about that
anyway? how long does this warranty last for? would i have had to pay
extra when i got the drives to qualify for it, or would any recently
bought maxtor drive qualify?

 

[larrymoencurly]

Haven't seen one go longer than 18 months roughly.
They are noisy too.

What is the operating temp range for a hard drive? Is 26-32 C
within spec?

I found that the only drives quieter than Maxtors are Seagates, while
the noisiest drives seem to be Western Digitals (but I've used only
their ball bearing models).

Drives are rated for 55-60C surrounding air, and when I took
measurements in about 25C air, 7200 RPM drives typically idled at 42C
(measured at the bottom screw holes, drives horizontal, either 1/4"
above table or flat on formica table (I can't remember which), but a
Seagate was 46C, probably because its circuit board was covered with
foam and metal. Seagate says that less than 1mm of air space is
needed around the drives, but I don't think that anybody prefers such
close space, and 0.5" is probably much better.

 

[John Smith]

Well, generally it is a bad idea as you are more likely to get dust and dirt
inside your PC. However, this is something that I personally used to do
prior to building my 'quiet pcs' - the Zalman made the huge difference and
then things like the rubber gromets helped. You'll notice that the Zalman
comes with a neat little device which allows you to slow down the RPM of
your fan - you can buy this separately and many people put these on their
fans - or make their own if you are handy with wire cutters and a
screwdriver - to slow them down and hence help reduce the noise.

What you will find, and I know many people who also feel this way, is that
once you begin down the road of quieting your PC you will enter into some
kind of crusade to get a quiet PC as possible. Doing this is, in many
respects, similar to all those overclockers who are trying to fine-tune the
performance of their CPUs, Memory and VGAs. You get it a bit quieter and
then you think "But what if I did this....". A friend has just begun down
the water-cooling route - incredibly quiet - as several new more practical
water-coolers have recently come on the market...

I am ranting. You need to think of things like the Zalman CPU and other
processor coolers, having a VGA card with no fan, getting rid of small
noisey fans and replacing them completely if you can or replacing them with
much bigger slower moving fans, discovering that your PC is sat on too hard
a surface, etc, etc. Believe it or not, but only recently PSUs have come
onto the market which allow you to position the PSU a significant distance
from the PC and from you.

Hope this helps,


John.

What do you guys think of this? If I leave the side panel off, there will

be less heat build up allowing me to disable a fan and cut

 

[kony]

What do you guys think of this? If I leave the side panel off, there will be less heat build up allowing me to disable a fan and cut
down in noise.
That kills two birds with one stone doesn't it?

Good idea or bad idea?

A properly designed case will use airflow moved by the fans to keep
components cooler than with case open. Fans should be selected in RPM and
number to accomdate the heat and keep noise level and dust to a minimum.
The case is the harder part, since a bad case has to be carved up or
replaced if it's not allowing proper airflow.

Whether your having an open case helps will certainly depend on the case,
but might even make all fans less effective so not really allowing
elimination of one, rather you still won't have optimal airflow. A
properly designed case with fans selected for low noise would often be
quieter than running the system with one fan disconnected and cover off.

That's the generic answer. What fits your system, it's unique combination
of drive placement, fans, ambient temp, components inside, will determine
what works best in your particularl situation, but generally the proven
solution is to buy a different case or modify the existing case.

 

[Larc]

On 21 Apr 2004 22:51:24 -0700, (e-mail address removed)
(larrymoencurly) wrote:

| I found that the only drives quieter than Maxtors are Seagates, while
| the noisiest drives seem to be Western Digitals (but I've used only
| their ball bearing models).

I have two WDs in my main computer, a 120GB SE and a 100GB SE.
They're both very quiet. Ditto on the WD 80GB SE in my second system.
Maybe I just lucked out!

Larc



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