Hard disk clicking sounds & slight stutter

Every 10-15 mins, I hear one of my hard disks make a clicking sound and I experience a very slight stutter. I don't recall which thread I read about someone else having this issue - but is this leading to a hard disk crash?

at less than 1 month old, I'd be very p1ssed off if that's the case.

 

It happens. Some clicks are normal and some are bad. If you are experiencing stuttering when it clicks then it's probably bad. Since you have a raid setup use the Dell diagnostics to run a check on both disks.

 

Yeah mandrake is spot on, sometimes its standard, sometimes its bad, in my case...

Ive had a sony clicking for 4 years flat out :S its still running hehe.

Run them diagnostics and hope for the best.

 

I've had many recent Seagate drives that do that, including the one in my M17x. It may have something to do with either the freefall sensor or the acoustic management as well. I think there was a thread somewhere on these forums that had suggestions on how to disable or change them so they're less obtrusive.

 

Simple answer (since i went throught the same problem).. if most users here have HD's that dont make noises... why shold yours do? (even if its "kind of normal")! I paid some good money for this laptop (and so did you)... so I would request a replacement, clone the HD (so you don't have to resintall everything) and send the clicking one back to dell.
Just my 2 cents

 

Is it just coincidence that people with 2x 500gb raid 0 are reporting these clicking problems? I haven't read about anyone with 320's or 160's having an issue with theirs.

 

Yeah every incident i have seen thus far of noisy harddrives is from what you said 2x500 gigs in Raid 0 . I have a brand new in the bag 500gig seagate sitting right here so i hope i dont the issue either but i wont be running raid so we shall see.

 

Mine was not raid... but it was the 500gb...

 

Thanks All

i had done a reinstall of vista and disabled raid0 - but clearly the commonality here is the 500 GB. will run diagnostics tonight.

and yes...for very pretty penny i've ponied up for this rig, i'm quite annoyed about the number of issues i'm having. so far...
1. clicky hard drive (if it is just a 'feature' and not a bug, i'll accept it but why the h3ll is freefall doing anything? my laptop is not falling so don't lock the heads!)

2. dvdrw drive that doesn't read dvd's that other computers can read

3. an already-squeaky 'space bar'. my M17x is less than a month old!

4. not so much an issue but a falsely advertised feature - oveclockability of the qx9300 - nothing stable above 2.93 GHz.

5. related to 4 - a bios that lets you overvolt so that we can actually overclock.

#4 (and implicitly #5) were BIG advertising points for dell/alienware on this laptop, and if they can't deliver, 50% of that upgrade cash-back! 1000 USD for the QX9300 ?

i really hope i don't end up going Languid's way (returning the laptop).

 

Regarding #4, kcissem has his stable above 2.93 and #5 is not needed. If you get a good overclock your mb will supply the extra voltage.

 

I had that hard drive clicking issue and stuttering, i contacted dell they came out the next day and installed a new HD, i havent had a single issue since, it even cleared up my FPS drops while gaming.

As for overclocking im running at 3.07GHZ without issue.

 

Alot times this can be solved with a firmware upgrade if available, another cause can be cd/dvd r-rw's being recorded to fast for your drives readspeed. for instance if i record a cd at 48x on your computer and try to play it on another computer that only has a 32x read speed than it will not play. Reason why i always burn my crap at either 2x or 4x.

if you deem this to be an issue there's a reason your lappy came with a warrenty.

Nothing was falsely advertise, the advertisements i saw and heard were that it "MAY" be overclocked to 3.0. All cpu's are different so unless they are handpicked and tested there is no guarantee that a cpu will oc well. besides that i had mine overclocked at 3.06 rock solid for 3 weeks now until i ran into stability issues last night, but i believe that is mroe related to the game i was playing than my OC.

unless aw unlocks the voltages this may not happen unless you modify the bios yourself which is possible. unlocked volatages was never advertised anyhow, only that the extreme cpus were said to be unlocked which is true and as advertised.

 

for #1: Will ask for an HD replacement. i have the FPS drop in games as well so let's hope it works.

#3: squeaky space-bar: it's a loud annoying squeak. it is an issue but not one that warrants a lappy replacement...unless they get me the new one first and then take the old one.

#2: yes, i know that happens. but these are supposedly new dvdrw drives. AND...i'd assume the Half-Life 2 DVDs aren't written at such a high speed that the drive won't read it. plus, those are "pressed" so they shouldn't have the same problem. what about the alienware respawn DVD? that doesn't read properly either. and the drive makes loud scratching sounds when either of these are inserted, but not on other comps.

#4 & 5: some OC that it's significantly higher than the OC achievable my upping the FSB is what i'd expect. again, the point here is this isn't some lucky draw...we're paying A LOT of money for it. honestly, if you could only do my OC and i could do yours or better, wouldn't you be ticked off too? if not, you're a bigger and richer man than i