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    Hard drive makes loud clicking noise every now and then?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by johnny13oi, Jul 21, 2008.

  1. johnny13oi

    johnny13oi Notebook Evangelist

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    Hey guys, I have this new M1330 with a Western Digital 250GB 5krpm hard drive. The hard drive sometimes makes a very loud clicking noise like it just powered down while I am still using the computer normally. And on top of that, I can hear the hard drive make kind of a whooshing sound which I am guessing is the head moving into place. Is this normal and I am overreacting? I can't check the SMART data to see if everything is okay. And with my ear right next to the hard drive, I can hear it click very softly twice every second and a louder one every second.
     
    johnny13oi, Jul 21, 2008
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  2. eLPe21

    eLPe21 Notebook Enthusiast

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    hi i've got similiar feeling of power losses to my hdd :)
    I wrote a post yesterday and just came here to check for replies :D
     
    eLPe21, Jul 21, 2008
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  3. johnny13oi

    johnny13oi Notebook Evangelist

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    Is there a way to check the Hard Drive SMART DATA in Windows Vista? My harddrive is set as AHCI in bios and I think that that might have something to do with not being able to check the SMART data. Any way to check hard drive SMART data with AHCI on? I tried a great deal of programs and they all don't seem to read the SMART data but display that the SMART data is enabled.
     
    johnny13oi, Jul 21, 2008
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  4. Forte

    Forte NBR's Supreme Angel

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    Clicking noise is normal as that is just the drive processing. It would help if you provided a model # of your computer of some sort....

    Assuming you have eLPe21's type of laptop, M1530, go into your Laptop's Bios and under Device Settings, you can change the mode of the Hard Disk. By default for new drives it is set to Bypass, but you can set it to Quiet and it should quiet down.
     
    Forte, Jul 21, 2008
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  5. johnny13oi

    johnny13oi Notebook Evangelist

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    Yeah I stated in the original post that my laptop was a M1330 with a 250GB 5krpm hard drive. If you were talking about the model number of the hard drive, it is WD2500BEVS-75UST. I initially had it set to performance in the bios but then changed it to bypass later on but was still the same and now am trying out the quiet mode.

    Also, I think I can hear the drive heads moving right before or during the click. It sounds like a very subtle whoosh as it clicks. It could be either the hard drive spinning up or head moving every time it clicks like every second.

    Sorry to bother yall but just really would rather not have the hard drive crashing on me in the future.
     
    johnny13oi, Jul 21, 2008
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  6. eLPe21

    eLPe21 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Forte everything is in this topic ;-)
    I'll try the quite mode as well.
    Was in bypass now in performance. We'll see if's change anything.
     
    eLPe21, Jul 21, 2008
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