Clicking HDD

A while ago I had to call Dell to get a new hard drive for my m1530 because of some SMART error. Though they were nice enough to upgarde my 250gb 7200 to a 320gb 7200, the new hdd makes an annoying clicking sound that comes in small bursts then slows down for a bit, and i'm pretty sure this wasn't the case on my original hdd. Does this merit getting another hard drive? or are most hard drives like this? Thanks

 

Apparently, there is some known issue with clicking XPS M1530 drives. To me a clicking drive is never a good sign, but this one is related to the AHCI functionality I believe.

 

What drive is it? If it's the WD Scorpio Black, it's been known to click. Mine clicked for a few weeks when I first got it (a month ago), but it hasn't clicked since. Just give it a little while, see if it fixes itself.

 

It's a seagate 320gb 7200rpm. I've already had it for about a week and a half so If it was going to fix itself it probably would have by now. I guess ill just get it replaced again.

 

Let us know how that goes will ya. I've had a clicking drive since I purchased my 1530, I just thought it was something Dell wouldn't do anything about.

 

I just called and after guiding me thorugh a number of tests, they're going to send me a new hard drive. Contrary to what I've heard, Dell CS is actually quite helpfull.

 

Mine is making a clicking noise too......

It also get very hot everyone now and again

 

I'll keep calling untill they send me a flawless one. I didn't pay nearly $2000 so I could make comprimises on quality.

 

I have the WD Scorpio Black 320 GB SATA drive in a Dell Inspiron 1720 and it's clicking every few minutes, too. I found a link on WD's website stating that these Scorpio drives may produce a clicking noise on certain laptops. Here's the link below - HOWEVER - I ran the utility and it said my drive didn't need an update... which I suppose was a firmware update. My drive has the 11.01A11 firmware. Anyways - just in case you care to try the utility:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/popup_adp.php?p_sid=undefined&p_lva=undefined&p_li=undefined&p_faqid=1414&p_created=1138984716&p_sp=undefined

I've read in a few other posts that Windows Advanced Power Management may be to blame as it attempts to put SATA drives into power-save mode. Western Digital's patch would appear to address this issue for their drives - my guess would be that the patch tells the drive to ignore the powersave mode. Regardless, I'm stuck with the click for now - and I'm positive this is a good drive. All diagnostics (sector-by-sector) are 100% OK.

 

Chris, if you got a 320 GB 7200, then it's the Seagate. So if Dell is sending you another one, you're going to have the same clicking. Dell sent me a 2nd identical M1530 because of the grainyness issue with the 1920 x 1200 monitor. BOTH the old and the new computers have the 320 GB 7200 Seagate and both click ALL THE TIME.

My conclusion is the clicking has nothing to do with the drive being bad. You're just going to have to try the adjustments that others have suggested that are described in various other threads.

 

Chris....I'm glad you getting your prob's with your HDD fixed

I have the Seagate and haven't had to face this issue, fortunately...and I feel sad for those 1530 owner's that do!

Here is a thread with some useful info on the HDD/Clicking sounds:
Clicking Noise issue *resolved*
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=168425&highlight=HDD+click

Some may or may not find it helpful...But either way it's a good read


Cin

 

Here I have similar case to Kfish already described. I downloaded the utility from WD webpage, made bootable USB, booted from it, run WDUPD020.EXE only to get an error message that no hard drives were found.

So for now I have constant clicking "noise" which drives me mad -- it is really insane how WD "solves" the problem.

 

Hi.

You need to disable AHCI in the BIOS and then the HDD will be detected, but dont boot into your OS until you have turned AHCI back on.

I tried WDUPD020.EXE but i already had the latest BIOS.

I was getting a clunking noise when the heads are parked, I fixed the problem by using a program called hdparm which stops the HDD from entering power saving mode.

http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/

Regards

John.

 

Check out Dell's downloads and drivers page for the M1530 - they just posted a download (12/19/08) that resolve this issue with a number of Seagate drives. Its can be found under the downloads for SATA Drives. It will require you to make a bootable CD (instructions given) and took about 30 minutes to complete for me (320GB 7200RPM). My drive now runs much quieter and NO clicking!

Good luck!

 

Nice! Thanks! My Seagate 320GB 7200rpm is currently being shipped to my house right now. I hope it doesn't click like my current drive on my XPS. I'll try this if it clicks.

 

I have the 320gb seagate 7200.3 in mine and it clicks like hell so im replacing it with an SSD, my origianl 250gb WD black did the same somthing up with the way the bios is controling the drive its going to happen with all drives.

 

Thanks for the info guys! nm17103, you've gotten my hopes up with that download from Dell. However, are you sure the instructions are given? All I can find in the folder is an .iso an .exe, a .BAT, and a .lod (the latter being unreadable on my computer). Thanks!

 

Tinderbox, thank you. This time this utility found the drive but it appeared there is no need to update (according to it -- irony, I spent several hours yesterday to make DOS bootable CD or USB).

I tried hdparm, finally it kills the clicking -- thank you!

 

Well I just installed the same seagate hard drive today. It clicks quieter, but it still clicks. So it's the BIOS? Makes me think Dell is doing something wrong.

 

Hi chrishunter,

The instructions can be found at the bottom of the download page (Dell never seems to include them with the actual download). If you run the .exe file it should create the bootable CD for you. I only received my M1530 on 12/15 and the clicking harddrive was the first thing I noticed! I thought I would be out of luck since my hardrive would already have the latest formware, but apparently not. Interestingly, if I searched Dell's downloads page using my Service Tag, the download didn't show up (implying I didn't have one of the offending drives). I only found the download after reading news on another site that the fix had been released and went back and searched for downloads using just my model number.

Hope it works for you. Apparently it's not a fix for everyone, but worked a treat for me!

 

What command line options did you use with hdparm?

 

hi . . .

is there anyone tell me why dell don`t do anything about "clicking HDD" on xps1530 ?

if anyone can call an contact to dell , please tell them about this problem .

why do we must use sotware like hdparm for solve this problem and why dell don`t slove it ?

there is no any good solution for this problem and each solution i have done disable things to solve it .why ?

my hdd is WD 320gb and it annoy me . . .

 

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...1&impid=-1&formatcnt=2&libid=41&fileid=289385

Also look http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=333017 , haven't tried myself yet.

 

This is really wierd. Dell's updated driver for the Seagate HD is INCOMPLETE?

Seagate ST9320421ASG version A01 12/11/2008 = 2MB

Seagate ST9320421ASG version DE16 12/19/2008 = 1MB & "Seagate Utility.iso" has nothing inside of it!

I want to use the DE16 updated version.

 

Hmm that is idd very strange, didn't notice that.

 

Did you guys ever managed to fix it? I got the same problem and im running vista x64 I hope thats not it.