Click click, buzz buzz (7811 Hard Drive & Power Adapter)

I'm on my third 7811 (first one had a GPU that overheated, second one had a bright pixel (big red dot right in the middle of the black screen) and a white "spot" that shifted around on the screen when rubbed (is this the bubble people were talking about?)...it also had some GPU heat issues.

So far my third laptop seems okay *knock on wood*. There are two things that I've noticed on this one that I didn't notice on the first two (but it may have just been an oversight on my part).

1 - The infamous hard drive click. No this isn't the dying hard drive click. There's another thread on here that discusses it more thoroughly. In short, it's just a quiet click (probably the adjustment of the drive heads) that occurs when the drive is completely idle (not indexing, defragging, nothing). Happens every few seconds sometimes, doesn't happen at all at other times.

I've had it on previous models of laptop, but I didn't notice it on my first couple of 7811's. It does seem like it may be one of those things that some models of the exact same hard drive do it and others don't.

Anyone here with a 7811 that can confirm if they hear it too?

2 - Buzzing\whining power adapter. This is something I'm almost sure I'd have noticed before. My power adapter is making an annoying buzzing\high pitch whining noise. I think I'm going to take it back to Best Buy today and ask them to exchange it for one of the power adapters from one of the 7811s I had to return yesterday.

Before I do, has anyone else noticed noises coming from the power adapter? It was pretty much going on for three or four hours last night.

 

The buzzing power supply is a known issue here with the 7811s, your plan of returning it to BB is a good one for as you say they have at least two others from which you may choose at no cost to them.

I haven't noticed any hard drive noises at all with either the stock Seagate or the 2 Hitachis I have in there now (RAID 0 - thanks again E-wrecked!) It may just be the drive heads parking as you suspect.

 

Can a few people post the firmware version of their Seagate hard drive (the stock drive in the 7811)? I'm wondering if maybe there's different Seagate firmwares and perhaps I need to call Seagate for an updated firmware (since they decide not to post most their firmware versions on their website, arg).

 

evan, I swapped out the Seagate for 2 WD Scorpio's.. the first 7811 models I had didnt make *any* hard drive noises using them. With this more recent model, I enabled RAID and ran 64bit Home Premium..as soon as I got finished with everything, I noticed a clicking sound coming from the HDDs. Sounds like the same issue you're having. It's not the Hard drives, as Ive been using them from the get-go with the 7811s. Maybe it had something to do with my RAID array, because I decided to break it and re-install using IDE/AHCI and the clicking noise has stopped. Im thinking it's either the chipset, or maybe something to do with the new BIOS? Or, maybe even the rig itself..they used a different DVD Drive in the newer versions. Possibly, this has something to do with it? Im just throwing out ideas, cause I really have no clue. Like I said, once I quit RAID the noises went away. I'll see if I can find any more useful info later on today. Just an idea though, try updating your Intel Express Chipset and Storage Controllers via their website..not Gateways.

 

Firmware version 3AAA

No clicking here.

 

Once again, E-Wrecked chimes in with some +rep worthy suggestions!

From the research I've done on the issue, it's not specific to any one hard drive model. A number of hard drives from a variety of manufacturers generate the same complaints from people. As I mentioned, the general thought is that it's the heads parking. Whether it's an over-aggressive power management situation, or to encourage the drive to remain active for some kind of drive safety issue, it seems that no one knows for sure.

There was one situation where a series of Dell laptops was doing it, and Dell released a patch. This leads me to believe it could probably be solved in a number of ways (software patches, firmware updates, HD power management adjustments, etc).

I haven't done as thorough a job double checking the BIOS, drivers, etc, on my third laptop because I was primarily making sure I could Furmark for 15 minutes within reason (maxed at 73C), Prime95 for awhile (5 hours with no problems) and do a full scan with HD Tune Pro (no bad sectors, hd maxed at 63 or 64C, idles closer to 53C).

When I get home today, I will spend more time updating and see if something I do will make it go away. I don't think the DVD Drive would affect it, because the last two models I had were both the "newer" models as well.

 

Dang, I think that was the same firmware I have (will have to double check when I get home).

 

Any chance some of this clicking is traceable to indexing? When I first got both my 7811's, the hard drive was much more active and noisy than later. The hard drive light flashed constantly. I think it was because every darn file, folder, and program the computer came with, plus those of the programs I installed, was getting and even reindexed as installs and working changed them. Apparently this involves changing the attributes of every single file, because when turning indexing off, you get a window telling you that the attributes are being turned off one file after another. And it takes quite a while. So putting the particular attributes on to enable the files to be indexed must take quite a while and quite a lot of hard drive reading and writing, too. And it's not like indexing stops after that, either. It's always running in the background like a curse.

 

I'm going to double check, but I'm almost positive this clicking occurred when the hard drive light reflected zero activity.

 

I ran into the same thing.. I actually had disabled the Windows Indexing, as well as Prefetch in hopes it would make the noise go away. My hard drives are a lot less active, that's for sure. The thing is, since uninstalling RAID I haven't had the click issue. Maybe it was just all the constant writing while in RAID? Im trying to remember, but I know Prefetch got disabled before changing back to IDE..but can't remember with the indexing. Possibly that being enabled with RAID was causing my clicking? And maybe this is why my RAID setup didnt perform as well as I'd have liked it to? I'm gonna look into a firmware update for my 160GB WDs. If anyone has a link handy for the support site, feel free to post it and I'll visit it when I get home. On a side note, I did a clean install of Vista, not the Gateway install..so it's not a gateway driver issue..unless its the lack of a driver.