My solution for clicking noise Scorpio blue 6400BEVT

(sorry for my english, I speak french...)

I bought this HD : 640gig Western Digital Scorpio Blue in October 2009 for my new installation of Windows 7.

This drive made loud CLICKING NOISES so I returned it to the store.
After 1 month of waiting...my new one make the same noise...

So I try many things and one work for me:


I install NHC :

http://www.pbus-167.com

and set APM of the hard drive to 254

After that, I shutdown the computer and put my backup image (ghost image) without NHC on it.

Since, the clicking noises are gone and the Load/unload cycle are only increasing by 1 when I boot the computer. Before that, the load/ unload cycles was increasing by 176 per hour!!!

And, NHC is not install so it not start with Windows...

So I hope this help someone...

(My computer : HP Pavilion DV2915ca)

 

Much prefer QuietHDD to NHC. Much smaller program (just an exe that's 60 kb, doesn't install anything, just runs. Been using it for over a year now with great results. Uses virtually no resources, either.

People say Seagates have an annoying click. I thought this WD was dying out of the box until I ran quietHDD. Much worse than the 7200.3 I had. Talk about annoying...fast as hell though...so I can deal.

Link: http://sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/

 

...

It is normal for hard drives to click due to the fact that they are mechanical devices. Specifically, the clicking noise you hear is likely the sound of the read/write heads being parked in order to save power and protect data when movement is detected. By disabling this feature, you've increased power consumption and increased the rate of wear on your drive.

If you're concerned about the long-term reliability of the drive, use a program like HDTune to check the SMART attributres of the drive. If, on the other hand, the periodic clicking disturbs you, then try looking for a BIOS setting that sets the drive to run in silent mode.

 

After many hours of testing....this solution is NOT WORKING...

After a complete shutdown, defauts settings are back...

Really sorry guys but many thanks for replys

With HP, there's no option in BIOS...(thanks HP). Tonight, I check the cycle counts (load/unload) of my last HDD (Samsung spintpoint) and the result is : 1227 (more than a year of usage)

I think I will try QuietHDD

(sorry again for my english...)

THanks!

 

I've had similar problems with my drives, actually. Your explanation doesn't apply in my case because the drive that's clicking is my storage drive--no OS or processes being run from it--and I'm not accessing it in any way.

The clicking is on and off, but I've always wondered what caused it. And this only appeared after I moved to windows 7.

 

Yeah try QuietHDD.

Your english is fine and perfectly understandable.

 

Thanks )

The real problem for me with the "head parking" it's not the noise. When the HDD put the heads
in safe zone, after that when I try to open a software or anything, the computer
freeze for few seconds...

I will try this solution this morning:
http://www.scratchlive.net/forum/discussion/191174

because I don't like the "load at startup software" solution...
If I can, I hope to find a "hardware solution"

Hope it works!

 

I had this park clicking problem on my slowpoke 120GB WD ..
I used NHC before found out QuietHDD from this forum,
both fix the problem, but it's true, QuietHDD uses very little memory resource and gets the job done perfectly!
+1 recommended!

 

i got a better solution just keep downloading something i got utorrent up all the time so the HDD never stops .

 

Well... I will think about it! lol

 

I had to try QuietHDD for myself to see if my drive would get quieter (Hitachi 7K500).

While I didn't notice it getting any quieter (it was quiet before! ), what I did notice is that I ran HD Tune's Random Access Read tests and the HD measured 3 ms faster with QuietHDD than without!

Still not enough to beat the Scorpio Black Phil (mod) keeps referencing, but 3 ms is a huge difference. The computer definitely has a little more snap, but this is just a gut feeling - I should test this for everyone here!

Just wanted to say thanks to jeremysdad who first suggested this little utility in this thread.

Cheers!

 

I'm wondering...is it a normal issue? Is it a problem with my laptop bios? Is it a problem with Windows 7 and Matrix storage?

Every WD Scorpio blue have this issue??

 

Can't take the credit. I think I first heard of it at aspireoneowners.com, from someone who might have heard of it from who knows where.

As to the power loss: Never measured, but I'm usually plugged in, anyway.

To movement: Usually plugged in and stationary. Never move it while powered up, there's always some toys and shtuff laying around to trip over.

If either of those factors are issues to you, though, then the BIOS option may be a better route, if available (OP stated that it was not an option in his).

 

For now, my latest solution:

sell this drive and buy a smaller Seagate at my computer store

Clicking noises and freeze are gone...

 

lol not seagate one...they'll fail...and cause problems... get Hitachi 500GB 7K500...