View Full Version : Noisy Hard-drives
I have 2 very noisy hdd, they constantly whine and drone, even when the pc is idleing, and i really have had enough...any suggestions as to cause, and cure?
No idea Matty - I think it's just that some drives tend to be more noisy. It's noisy fans which drive me nuts!
tbh i thought it was the fans, but complicated scientific tests constisting of me sticking my fingers on the fans to slow them down(dont try this at home kids!)failed to stop the noise, only uplugging the hdd from the power stopped it...i am going to isolate the HDD from the cages with a small bit of card, but i dunno if thats the answer. I dont really want to have to buy new ones, ive only had the 80gb one for about a year...
Some hard drives are just noisy EosD ! :(
What makes and models are they ? and is it one hdd that is worse than the other ?
In my own personal experience no cure, some h/d are noisier than others just the way they are. However you could try defragging as a fragmented h/d needing to access its information it would be skipping all over the drive creating more work and resulting in more noise. The other thing is depending on how old these drives are there is also a possibility of them being on there way out. H/d tend to go like that, so make sure all your system is backed up, I use nortons ghost, very good and would recommend, doesnt take long to back up your drive and even less time to reinstate, rather than spending hours installing software and drivers.
Hope this helps
Some hardrives are noisey Matty.
You have 2 choices:
Replace them (not really the ideal solution)
Sound proof them (Isn't this your line of work).
I beleive there is a rubber jacket that can fit over a drive, it protects it from knocks and also reduces the noise that it produces.
It would also stop any vibration noises that transmit through the PC case.
Before you ask, I have no idea where to get them from but I have seen a drive with it on.
Some hardrives are noisey Matty.
You have 2 choices:
Replace them (not really the ideal solution)
Sound proof them (Isn't this your line of work).
I beleive there is a rubber jacket that can fit over a drive, it protects it from knocks and also reduces the noise that it produces.
It would also stop any vibration noises that transmit through the PC case.
Before you ask, I have no idea where to get them from but I have seen a drive with it on.
Some drives come with these on, have never seen them for sale though !
In my line of work noisy hard drives produce less noise than the servers ! lol
The noise is most likely due to the bearings in the HD's and there is nothing that you can do to make them any quieter so the options are the same as the guys above have already pointed out, either sound proof/isolate or replace. Instead of card though, use some small sections of rubber inbetween the HD and anything it rests on or touches, this will also dampen the drive and stop your case amplifying the noise. If you chose the second option of replacing, first give me first shout on buying your old one ;) and second make sure the replacement drive comes with fluid bearings as these are much quieter.
Hope that helps buddy :)
Have a look at this EosD
http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_3851.html
Is supposed to silence noisy bearings etc, never used them, but maybe worth a try ?
Are the drives mounted in internal or "external" drive bays in the case? If "external" then could you move them to internal and then sound proof the case using our old friend Dynamat?
Try mounting the drives on some fresh sausages. With them being fairly soft & squishy, the drive noise should be barely audible :shock:
[smilie=s:
I use this all the time. It works a treat.
[smilie=s:
I use this all the time. It works a treat.
And when you get hungry....;)
[/sillymode-off] :wink:
Why not get a big new hard drive which has fluid bearings (reduced noise levels), transfer all your crap (sorry, important data :) ) on to it, then sell your old drive(s)?
I only use Western Digital drives on the systems I build, because if things do go wrong they are the fastest in getting a replacement to you (2-3 working days throughout the WHOLE wty period using their advance replacement). In the last 70-80 systems I've built, only 1 HD has failed and I got that sorted in under 4 days.
If you want extra data security, why not get 2 drives in a RAID1 (mirrored) setup, as you'll have speed & more peace of mind?
Something like...
200Gb WD2000JB PATA (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=7156238402&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X2 92ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=40468) for £62.12 each
or if you have SATA HD connectors..
200Gb WD2000JD SATA (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=7156241392&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X2 92ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=55240) for £69.07 each
christ thats cheap!!! How do i know if im getting something with Fluid bearings?
Almost all newer model HDs have them now, and the WD drives do. I've got 4 HDs in my PC 3 of which are WD (other is Hitachi), and I can only hear the 10k rpm Raptor when it's defragging.
this case sounds like a car fan, its really hacking me off now
Is it deffo the HDD? perhaps it's the PSU cooling fan? You can get whisper quiet ones cheap enough.
no its both the hdd, i tried a cunning experiment....unplugged them....its deffo them, what is annoying is that they have both gone dry at the same time, so its very annoying!
Just had a thought on this, IBM (Hitachi now own the HD division) have a utility that I am led to believe works on all makes which allows you to run the drives in a quiet mode. Its a free download too. Maybe that worth trying?
Feature Tool (v1.97)
This is a DOS-bootable tool for changing various ATA features. The Feature Tool allows you to control some of the features of our Deskstar and Travelstar high performance ATA hard disk drives and supports 48-bit addressing, so it will work with the new large capacity drives.
This version adds support for our latest drives. Changes include:
Added new product support
Added SATA feature settings
Added warnings for SATA feature settings
Updated documentation and install packages to incorporate changes
The Feature Tool allows you to:
Enable or disable the read-ahead or write cache.
Change the drive Automatic Acoustic Management settings to the:
o Lowest acoustic emanation setting (Quiet Seek Mode), or
o Maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode).
Change the predefined capacity of the drive. This option can be used in situations where there is a BIOS limitation and the drive is not recognized. See the Users Guide for specific details.
Switch the Ultra DMA mode
Change Advanced Power Mode - allows you to change between the lowest power consumption and the highest power consumption (maximum performance level).
Show Drive Temperature - shows the current drive temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Configure SATA interface - adjust maximum speed and enable/disable Spread Spectrum Clocking.
It can be downloaded from here (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm)
If you are not using a IBM (Hitachi) HD and dont want to try this tool on your drive it may be worth checking out the manufacturer of your drive to see if they offer a similar tool?
Hope that helps buddy :)
cheers steve i will look into it......if i can remember the brands..../opens control panel///
cheers steve i will look into it......if i can remember the brands..../opens control panel///
Good luck..don't blame me if you have issues though :wink:
hehe, wont do anything i think will break it, not with my track record
hehe, wont do anything i think will break it, not with my track record
Wuss..lifes boreing without risks :lol: Are you a man or a mouse? :twisted:
lol!
got a western digital in here and a samsung drive.....
lol!
got a western digital in here and a samsung drive.....
I am pretty sure that WD do a similair application..not sure about samsung though.
found the samsung one, noise level can be set on that...looking for wdc now
western digital dont do it....but will try the samsung one out now
Good luck, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you.
Make sure you have backed up any data before you continue!!!
OOOOOH ! i remember feeling a bit apprehensive this when flashing the 20D ! ;) but it all worked out in the end ! :)
cant do it without a diskette...
havnet got any of them???!?!!!
LOL do you want me to post you one or can you aquire one from somewhere else quicker?
If you're going to get a new drive)s_, I can recommend Seagate Barracudas. They're a little noisy when accessing the drive, but when idling away they're silent. They're also quick.
Remember that the software that enables that quiet seek mode, will also slow your drive down.. plus... right at teh start of teh thread, it mentions noise when idling... if so, this will have no effect on that. Best thing to do is set your BOIS to spin the drives down after a few minutes of inactivity... much simpler.
will try that as the software makes no difference....
will try that as the software makes no difference....
It was worth a try anyway.
it was indeed....when i access the hdd for stuff its a little less noisy, so its sort of worked....
it was indeed....when i access the hdd for stuff its a little less noisy, so its sort of worked....
in that case it must be the general spinning thats making the noise as Pook has already suggested. I would give Pooks suggestion a try and tell the HD to idal a lot sooner, obviously it will take longer to access the info on the drives or write to them when you o need them as they will have to spin up to speed, but that small wait may be worth saving your sanity for.
conversely though.....the noise will be even more apparent!
conversely though.....the noise will be even more apparent!
Not when not accessing the drives though..depending on what you are doing and if you have enough memory, this should be fairly infrequent.
And legs knowing you :lol: [smilie=w:
They must be really loud if you're having this much trouble. TBH I'd unplug each in turn to find out which is the noisy one, and then replace it asap. Modern drives aren't noisy unless there's problems - get shot and it'll save you a whole load of problems when it does go. My laptop HDD went yesterday, but thankfully our hardware support guys at work will do a swapout for me :D
its both drives...im going to redo the case over the weekend and see if the chassis is casuing excess noise too...its only started recently so im thinking i will be wasting my time.
It's very unlikely that both drives will fail at the same time, considering they are from different manufacturers. Without hearing the noise I couldn't really give you too much advice, but try running them without the case covers on and see if it's resonance through the case. Have you made any recent changes to the PC setup (hardware wise)>
nope! i have unplugged all the fans and the drives and its definately them, last change was a dvd rom but it was making noise before that went in
I would say bring it over, but you're a bit remote for that to be sensible! Hmm, really not sure what to suggest... does pressing the case panels soften the noise at all?
no, only unplugging the drives. Im going to try disabling them in bios as suggested, just working up to it now
Take the DVD Rom out again and re-tighten the drive fixings. It maybe that fitting the DVD has allowed your HDDs to rattle slightly looser in the frame.
conversely though.....the noise will be even more apparent!
Not when not accessing the drives though..depending on what you are doing and if you have enough memory, this should be fairly infrequent.
Agreed. Because you will not expect to hear it, when you do it'll be very obvious. What Steve is suggesting is that minimising the use of the swap file (virtual memory on disk used when physical memory is at a premium) will reduce the times your HDD will need to be spun up. Sadly the latest Windows operating systems will use the swap file even if there is shed loads of physical memory available - I'd put it at 20-30% virtual in relation to physical. I can't say why exactly MS designed it this way, but I expect it was they predicted heavy memory usage of games and server style usage, so it was always designed to give equal physical memory usgae to all processes running, and because the OS's can't shuffle memory as well as MS would like, they split it into physical and virtual memory from the outset.
Sad but true....
i cant find an option in the bios to only run when necessary, im going to take all the drives out and redo them, tightening the drives has made no difference
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