G1 problems that should concern all owners!!!

I have bought my laptop a few weeks ago and i have been playing around with it and testing almost every aspect of it. From what i have found on my machine (vista + lightscribe model)

1) left Ctrl and Fn keys are really loud as though they are unfitted propertly.

2)My major concern is when i lift my laptop and tilt it from left to right and so forth i can totally hear the hard drive making weird notices, scratch noises if i may say. Now this concerns me because obviously this is a laptop and it is made to be portable, but hearing my hard drive make those noises..makes me think twice about moving it while its on.

3)Other small problems is sometimes after doing a complete shut down (waiting till the screen and led lights go out, without closing lid) the computer boots and says that i have not shut down properly or w/e.

4)i have encountered during boot that it said my disk drive cannot be read, then it auto reboots

If this concerns or relates to anyone please reply. Hey maybe im just bad luck and i got a bad laptop.

 

hard drive problem...

though laptops are portable, i think it is still not advisable to move them or tilt them while they are on. i mean, why use them being tilted at some time (at some incident or accidents maybe)

 

Well, then it should be called a desktop...

Clear reasons for which they should support limited tilting:
- using on the lap (as in LAPtop-- well, I know they're recently being renamed to notebooks but anyway); anybody will shift one's legs from time to time.
- using in moving vehicles.
- moving from place to place, like from a table to another.


Personally, I've moved laptops a lot, turned them upside down a lot (when I need to place them on something soft like a bed, such that I don't cover the air vents), while they were on. I've never had trouble or weird HDD noises. Perhaps you have a defective HDD... Note there is a certain freedom of movement the internal components of HDD have, which might produce a small noise when the notebook is moved, but not something radical like scratch noises....

The only situation where I feel bad about moving the laptop is while it's writing DVDs.

 

Sounds like you've got a bad drive.

If the system can't read from the drive and reboots, that's not a good sign. Odd noises are not good signs. I'd suggest having that swapped out ASAP.

As for moving them, E.B.E. might think it's ok, but personally, when you're dealing w/ technology that involves a moving platter and a head that's reading data off of that platter. If you damage that head, you're not getting your data back. I can't say that I don't ever move my laptops because I do; however, I try to do it as gently as possible and as little as possible.

HD Wiki

An excerpt from that link: Head crashes can be caused by electronic failure, a sudden power failure, physical shock, wear and tear, corrosion, or poorly manufactured platters and heads. (emphasis mine)

Now that flash drives are going to be used as main drives instead of the current standard platter drives, I can see moving a laptop around as being a lot less stressful. But until then, I personally suggest erring on the side of caution.

 

I know, I also don't move my notebooks around just for the fun of it

Notebook HDDs do include shock protection, but you're correct in saying that one shouldn't happily jerk the notebook around and rely without doubts on that protection.

Maybe the best advice is: "Avoid moving the notebook when unnecessary. Don't be afraid to move it when necessary, but do it gently."

Just to get an idea of the typical quality of notebook HDDs: a year ago my M6Ne was bent and cracked in a car crash, and the HDD was bent by 1-2mm across one diagonal; it is still working without a problem. It was off at the time, of course, so the heads couldn't scratch the platters. But it must be a solid piece of machinery in order to take that amount of shock and act like it never happenned...

 

i got none of those problems...

 

Definitely sounds like a bad hard drive. The only problem I have with the G1P is the noisy keyboard. But I'm used to it already.

The silver piece on my hinge came off, but a touch of crazy glue fixed that right up.

Nyceis

 

My drive sounds fine when I tilt it which I do often. I use it in my lap and move around a lot. My keyboard is fine - a bit noisy, but doesn't bother me. I like the feel of the keys. The backspace is a bit squeaky on occasion, but I haven't taken a good look at it. I expect I could find a solution if I tried.

I had some sort of hibernate problem out of the box (MCE version) that I think was pretty common. 1 quick visit to the Microsoft Knowledge Base and a quick restart and no more trouble since.

The most trouble I've had was that it wanted to use the Asus screensaver very badly. I would turn it to None and after a hibernation, it'd be back (and loud). Not sure how I fixed it but it stays on None by itself now. My temp fix was to set the time until the screensaver started to 1000 minutes.

 

I really doubt that notebook hard drives or even regular desktops hard drives can be damaged by tilting them while they spin.

Of course theres some stress in the spinning mechanism (bearings, platter, motor, etc) while tilting the device due to gyroscopic effect, but they're design and built to be movable and portable. Those devices are not only used in notebooks these days you know? (i.e. Ipods and such are good examples, microdrives in some PocketPCs and other electronic portable devices use the exact same technology.

The only thing we need to avoid is excessive shock and pressure to the case amongst other things like dust and water for example.

But according to the symptoms described on the original post, I bet it's a defective hard drive.

Best regards,
RayanMX

 

thanks everyone for thier reply, another thing i may add is im not shaking my laptop or tilting it like a mad man showing my G1 what a earthquake feels like. But i had it on my lap and i tend to shake my legs, and i noticed this sound coming from the right side of the laptop where i believe the hard drive is.

I ran HDTUNE Results are

*benchmark*
Average Transfer rate 33.6mb/sec
Access Time 16.2ms
Burst Rate 60mb/sec
Cpu usage 7.7%

*heath* everything checked out ok.

*Error Scan* (Quick Scan) everything is ok no damaged blocks

Just wondering out of everyone here who replied, who has a G1 and actually slightly tilted it while its on to test this?

 

It may be the CD drive. I got the "Ring of Death" (Perfectly circular ring that extends around the Disk) on one of my Xbox 360 games while moving it when the thing was on.

 

I did see that (when tilting the drive makes noise) once or twice on a toshi mobile drive. those drives were horible to begin with and i was not surprised. i am surprised that toshi mobile drive division is still alive. You want to make sure the sound you hear is not the cd rom and indeed the hdd. Try looking in the hd compartment. maybee reseat the drive. you are not describing inherent issues here.

 

other than the keyboard flex i don't have any problems. i wouldn't even go to the extend of saying that it's going to 'fall out' anytime soon...

my g1's also constantly tilted as it's on a notebook cooler and so it's slanted downwards

dude the title u made for this thread is nothing but paranoia and misleading...

 

sorry i always tend to exaggerate things, or maybe im just to much of a perfectionist. So has anyone peeled the core 2 duo inside sticker on thier g1? it says *peel here* im tempted... lol

 

I intend to peel off all the stickers (on the palm rest). I removed a couple already and have only the XP and intel stickers left. They are a little messy to remove but nothing a little Goo Be Gone or the like can't handle. I can't see any sign that the other two stickers were even there. Stickers annoy me.