Replacement HDD vibrating entire laptop, even desk - Bad disk or bad mounting?

Hi everyone. I'm still using the system in my signature, the ASUS G73SW. It previously had two Seagate ST95005620AS HDDs in their drive bays. The one with the OS finally started to fail and I replaced it with a WD Black WD7500BPKX.

Both are 7200rpm drives. The day before doing the swap, I had the WD in a plastic enclosure and moved some files onto it via USB. I didn't notice such bad vibrations then, but the caddy inside my laptop is metal. Things have been otherwise okay after 1 day of use. The WD seems much quieter than the crunching and clicking of the Seagates. The WD's activity sounds more like a muffled buzzer or grinding sound.

When the disk is active, the vibration is harsh enough to distort the sound of the internal speakers, and I can feel the pulsating vibrations running through my hands as I type.

Is the drive bad, or just the mounting? This video shows the mounting process in the G73.

Thanks for your input.

 

If the vibration is that bad; replace it now. Can you upload a sound bite of the distorted sound? That is a very unbalanced drive if it affects the speakers output.

But, as you know, vibrations with HDD's (especially the 7200RPM models and higher) will always be an issue.

 

I have that same drive. I tried it in my M11X, and yeah the vibration was intense but so was the heat. It was more or less unusable in the small M11X.

I don't think the drive is bad, I just think it's that way by design. Also, I noticed it made a strange spindown sound when powered off. I thought it was one of my fans but it was the drive.

I also have an HGST 7K1000 which is much quieter, much less vibration, and runs cooler.

 

kosti, there is nothing like an HGST HDD...

 

Yeah, it's a wonderful drive. I got a factory reconditioned drive and have been using it for about two years constantly without issues.

 

If it is producing accessive heat and vibrations then it is bad and should be replaced

 

FWIW, I got my notebook with a WD Black drive in it (since replaced with an SSD), and it never vibrated as badly as what the OP describes.

 

I think the vibration will be amplified depending on the laptop so perhaps in some laptops it won't be as noticeable. In my M11X it was very noticeable while in my M15X, via the optical bay, it was not very noticeable except for that spindown sound I noted earlier. The 7K1000 in my M11X was not very noticeable at all even though that one also spins at 7200RPM.

OP should run a diagnostics test on the drive. In the meantime, if there's any data on there, it should be backed up just in case.

WD Lifeguard tool. You can start with a quick test and check for S.M.A.R.T errors, or an extended test (will take a while) to scan the surface for bad sectors:

http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3

 

Yeah, the 7K1000 is awesome Would recommend it to anyone who wants a 7200rpm drive!