Is it bad to move my alienware while it's on?

Whenever I move it down the steps or around the house I hear this funny sound..I think it's my harddrive. Is it bad to move while its on? If a game is in the tray? If so, what should i do to move it safely?

 

good question. i would like to hear other people's opinions on this. i don't think it's a good idea, but i do move mine a bit when its on. say like to put something under it, or just to move it out of the way. i try not to move it too much, but then again i try to treat it like a lil baby!

 

It won't hurt anything to move it, you just don't want to make any sudden or jarring movements with a standard HDD though. With an SSD there are absolutely no moving parts aside of the fans, and you aren't going to hurt those.

 

I walked downstairs with mine and it rebooted.

I think it's related to the freefall sensor, although I wouldn't know if it's "normal" to be that sensitive. I don't want to risk turning it off completely.

So worst-case scenario your computer will reboot.

 

Like Turbod told us, the only thing you dont want to do is move it fast... no "jarring" movements as this can lead the eye in the HD off track, and not only damage data, but "can" damage the HD.

I am in college, and bring it with me every place. More often than not when walking to a new class I do not turn it off, I place it in my bag and make it to my next class. When I pull it out, no problems. note: do not leave it in a bag when it is on for long... it can overheat!

 

Just don't flip it up side-down....Mine crashed and I had to reinstall windows. No joke. :[

 

Hmmm? Hibernate!

Its never good to move HDD while its running. NEVER!

 

The free fall sensor is very sensitive and very harsh at closing windows. I just need to bump the desk and it will blue screen. I have moved it up and downstairs without issues. Personally I would disable the freefall sensor. Someone here wrote a thread how to do it, but I don't know where it is.

 

Start (Windows logo in task bar) > All Programs > Accessories > right click on Command Prompt > Run as administrator. If you get asked if you want to run the program, choose Yes.

This should bring up a window that shows the following:

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>

From here, type in this command:

Code:

sc config Acceler start= disabled

If all goes well, you will see this:

Code:

[SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS

Reboot, and the accelerometer will be disabled. If you want to re-enable it in the future, follow the same steps but change disabled to auto in the command you type in.

 

What is best to do: let your windows go on standby while closing the lead. It is very simple after that to just open it again and within few seconds you will have your system on.

I keep my system only in standby for days and never had a problem.

Moving the system wherever you want while is switched on it makes a lot of damages to the hdd (like everyone mentioned above). The hdd has 3 disks inside (they look just like normal dvd's) and a very thin pin moving all over the surface. Those 3 disks move at a very high speed (some 5400 rotation per minute and some 7200 etc.). Even the smallest sudden movement leads to bad sectors in time on your hdd (unreadable clusters / scratched / marks which are not visible) and if for some reasons the bad sectors are at the beginning of the surface of the disks, windows will not boot or when you will have to reinstall windows it will simple lock at a stage where the bad clusters (surface) is unreadable and the disk will not write anymore. Ofcourse this could happen in time or unexpected.

At the best of my ability, I believe is better just to keep it in standby (you have the shortcut on your keyboard as well), move the system wherever you want and voila, everyone is happy including yourself.

Hope this helped.

 

freefall sensor in the m17 lock the hdd it does not crash window at most it freeze it for a few seconds

 

if you disamble the freefall sensor (like I did), what else will lock the hdd? I think everyone is aware of the sensor. Better safe than sorry

 

free fall sensor can be abit to sensitive but what it wierd is that your computer shutdown or crashes when on the move i mean shuting down feel like a loosy baterie connexion rathen the free fall sensor
i mean when i almost droped my laptop i could hear the HDD locking like when window stop it from spining because it's not used

 

Prior to disabling the free-fall sensor driver, I was getting random BSODs. I've opened the crash dump files caused by these BSODs, and each time it was an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL exception inside the Intel RAID driver. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that the free-fall driver was issuing a "park heads" command to the Intel driver in a way that made the Intel driver puke.

Now that I've disabled the free-fall sensor, I haven't seen any BSODs. It's been several months now, and everything has been working perfectly.

 

Same as....After a ton of research and contacting variouse h/d companies i can confirm the blue screen is the free fall sensor parking the heads

 

just for sake of knowledge... Inside the hdd the reading heads doesn't "move all over the surface" they actually hover over it and never touch it. the disk is covered by a thin magnetic layer. The head acts as an interface between the disks and the rest of the electronic components wich are in charge of transforming electrical signals into magnetic pulses to store data onto the disks. Normally when not in use the head is parked in a "safe landing zone". The problem that can occur is called "head crashing" and if it happend just once, normally the hdd is toasted, becouse of fisical damage on the surface of the disk plus the debris from the crash can finish the job. As far as the number of disk, it depends from the capacity of the hdd. As others already stated, as far as you don't make any fast movement, there are no problems to move the laptop.

 

It is okay to move your laptop around. I do it all the time with all my laptops. Hard drives are encase in a sturdy case for shock and vibration mainly as these have increased chances of damaging it. Most likely it's your footsteps causing the shock/vibration that is throwing off the head and causing it to "click." You can spin the hard drive around, move it up and up every which way but just don't put any kind of sudden jar to it.

 

This, fortunately, is one of the worst case scenarios for a ruin hard drive. To get to this state by a user you really had somehow put the hard drive through more shock/vibration than it normally is allowed. That or it's just bad luck

 

The whole point of the free fall censor is to stop H/D failure. If the OS is not on you can be assured no amount of jossle will hurt your drives. Your likely to break the machine befor eyou ruin your HD. With it switch on again you are unlikely to hurt a drive, before you damage the actual machine, freezing and blue screening are th H/D way of protecting themselves

 

Which brings up another question couch gaming? Good or bad for HDD?
So far I haven't had any problems even after wild fist pumps after a wicked shot (in the game)

 

I moved it around and never had any problems. It's a laptop - its supposed to be movable. Don't drop it on the floor though, it's not movable in that kind of sense.

 

I'm assuming you mean playing games while sitting on the couch and moving around? If so, this is how I'm using my laptop daily. Now problems but make sure it doesn't burn your private areas and such.