Samsung HM250JI clicking noise

I got the brand new Samsung 250GB HM250JI yesterday. While screening the Forum I've found this tread about WD HDD: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=143858 and it seems that my Samsung HDD is "affected" with the very same flaw. From time to time (let's say every 30-45mins) it makes this clicking sound which has nothing to do with normal heads operations' (this HDD is really very very silent). But, it makes this quite loud sound like the heads parking or rather bouncing against something. Did anyone notice something like this with this drive?
I've downloaded the latest firmware from Samsung and it didn't change anything. Anyway, the performance is very good, much better then my old 120GB Seagate (my subjective observation).

 

Yes, I noticed it too. I have returned my drive and got an other one..but this one has it too. Apart from this strange click/clunk once every 30-45 mins it is very silent in operation (though I find the vibration a bit higher compared to other 5400 rpm drives) and very fast.

 

Stop returning your drives. There is nothing wrong.

 

onion I hate to say but I think you might be right. Way to many HDD noise questions on this forum. Either people are way too sensitive to noise or they don't have enough RAM and are always hitting the HDD. Some brands or HDD's might be a little quieter but not much so all this talk about that is "bunk".

 

First, most HDD manufacturers provide a diagnostic program which should detect if there is any problem.

Second, I think Vista (if the concerned OS is Vista) had a glitch where the power management could get over-aggressive in trying to put the drive to sleep and park the heads while the computer is trying to use the HDD (I've heard this happen). I think this has been fixed by one of the many patches (or in SP1).

Third, HDD noise is subjective but some are worst than others, but the problem can be amplified by how the HDD is fixed into the computer.

John

 

John you bring up points that are good that I did not think of. They relate to Vista, if the OS is saving your settings and doing backups, in other words your HDD is always working it will make noise. Very truthfully my HDD does not make noise but at the same time when I use my notebook it rarely goes to HDD after boot. That gets back to my RAM advice.

 

I run Windows XP SP2 on my notebook so the clicking noise is not Vista related...
My hardware is Sony VAIO VGN-SZ260P.
Nothing's wrong with my new Samsung HDD so far... I'm starting to like this clicking sound ;-)

 

I have the same clicking noise. The clicks are veeeeery loud on mine. The drive is silent otherwise. I was gonna return it (had the RMA number and everything), but I tried connecting it using a usb-sata adapter and made heavy use of it for quite some time (under XP). No clicks.

So I decided to use it instead. And I get no problems with any diagnostic tool I tried.

 

The USB bus will severely slow down a modern SATA HDD...I don't recommend it.

 

I know... I was only testing to see if the clicking was there or not,

 

I too have the HM250JI and I also noticed this sound. It's definitely not OS related because I'm running Mac OS X on it. As gresiek says, it only happens about every 30-45mins. It's not just a simple click, it's a few magnitudes louder than any other sound the drive makes. The first time I heard it, I even feared that my brand new drive had already crashed, but it kept on working flawlessly.

It doesn't seem to be related to power saving, because it also happens when I have enough stuff running to keep the drive busy. I haven't noticed any problems, and the SMART status says everything is OK. Based on the fact that all HM250JIs seem to make this sound, and its periodicity, my guess is that it's just normal.
I still remember a Hitachi TravelStar drive from years ago, which touted a brand new head parking system which made a pretty annoying sound. It did this every time the heads were idle for more than 5 seconds. Compared to that, this is just a very minor nuisance.

 

Well, my notebook wouldn't boot yesterday, it hung on mup.sys during the windows xp boot.
I ran HUTIL by samsung on my HM250JI and it reported ECC errors during the surface scan with recommended action a low level format.
I will try this tonight and see if the drive's clunking/clicking noise is really that harmfull after all and I'll will have to RMA it again..
no cheers

 

This HM250JI is driving me crazy!!! I had that speed problem which was supposed to be fixed by the patch samsung released. After flashing the new firmware and reinstalling vista it starts hanging more than before, just after booting or a few minutes after booting. I checked the drive with a vista instalation disk which gave me a crc error, and with hutil I got a surface errror and a recomendation to do a surface scan. I will post after the scan to tell the result. By the way, I have had mine for only 3 weeks.
Can't believe the same company that made my beautiful vibrant 1920 x 1200 screen could make such a terrible worthless harddrive. Most probably I will take it back if I still continue getting those errors after a full hdd format.

 

Well, No luck!!! the errors still remain and I am going for a replacement, if not a refund.
Lucky are those that could solve theirs with the firmware.

 

Since installing this HD, my laptop also completely crashes at random times (about once every 2 days), because access to the HD seems to be suddenly blocked. On those moments, any application trying to read or write, hangs indefinitely. Those that don't need the HD keep on running (until the entire system has frozen up of course). It only seems to happen when I leave my laptop alone for a long time, so I can't verify if it is somehow related to this loud clicking sound.
Has anyone else experienced something similar? If so, this would save me a lot of tedious testing with fresh OS installs and HD swaps...

Edit: it doesn't only happen when I leave my laptop alone, it just happens randomly. It has also happened while I was working, and when the laptop woke from sleep.

 

I did al full low level format, and restored my os images (lucky I made them) and for now everything seems ok...keep my fingers crossed...

 

I did a fresh install of an older OS X version, and it didn't even take one day before that one also froze in the same way. So there's either something fishy about this HD, or my SATA controller doesn't play well with it. Anyhow, because it's way too much hassle to RMA it, I'm going to put it back in its external enclosure. As a backup drive it's perfectly usable. And I'm going to upgrade my laptop once again, to a 320GB WD drive

 

I have a dv9500t with a 500GB configuration, 2x250GB. Both 250's are the Samsung HM250JI's and I get the clicking noise and BOTH hard drives. The sound from the primary drive is somewhat louder than the secondary, but it exists on both. It sounds a like a jiggle of the screen latch.

Similar to many people on here, tests come up negative and the temperatures are well within normal operating ranges.


Im waiting on HP to send me a replacement hard drive. Supposed to come in on Thursday...

 

Ouch. Was the clicks in sync, or did they come at different times?

 

They come at different times. It is completely random too.

And in my case, when the primary hard drive clicks the HD Activity light goes solid for a second and Windows stalls during that time too. Again, its a brief second, nothing more.

 

Any conclusions here?

 

clicking noises are fairly common occurrences with hard drives. i have a wd 250gb hd and it clicks as well. however, in my case, windows doesn't stall when it is clicking and for some reason tends to click when i'm doing something where the hd is relatively idle, e.g. when readiing a webpage.

if you are using vista, perhaps it may correlate to the use of the indexing feature of vista.

 

I was told that setting the APM Mode for my harddrive (254 or 255) would resolve this. Any programs available that will allow me to do that? Thanks.

 

No conclusions...

Interestingly an HP case manager called me today and was asking if i had received my replacement hard drive. when i told him i didnt and that the next estimated ship date is 1/23/08 (2.5 months after the case was entered into the system on 11/10/08) he was like "i have two options for you: 1) you continue to wait, or 2) i send a replacement". Ive already had two replacements and this current machine is far from needing to be replaced (besides the fact that it has a 2.4GHz machine which is not available with dv9700's)...so i was like "oh no thats ok, im quite fine with this computer. im pretty sure that all that needs replacing is the hard drive".

It is really interesting, it is as if replacement machines are the norm there or something.

 

The most frequent clicking noises on laptop HDs are caused by APM (Advanced Power Management). When the APM is set to a 'normal' level, the drive heads will 'park' themselves if the drive is idle for about 5 to 10 seconds. Parking means that the heads will move to a special track on the disk which has less friction, so the drive can spin at a lower energy level. Unfortunately this creates a very audible 'clunk' on many drives. It also causes a considerable delay when the drive needs to be accessed when the heads are parked. If you want to play a game that needs to read stuff from the HD during heavy combat scenes, you'll want to set the APM such that the heads are never parked.
Now, the clicking noise on the HM250JI is something different, it only happens once every 30 minutes or so, and it's loud. I have no idea what it is.

I now have a 320GB WD HD in my laptop and it doesn't appear to make the same loud clicking sound as the Samsung. It does have a much more pronounced APM clunk sound, so I used an OS X utility called 'hdapm' to set the APM level to 'max performance'. If you look at my previous posts, the reason why I installed this HD was that I assumed that the Samsung caused random crashes of the SATA controller. However, 10 minutes after booting with the new WD HD, I had exactly the same kind of crash, and I had another one today. It appears that I most likely damaged the SATA controller with an electrostatic discharge or so when swapping the HD's. Oh joy.
Edit: I didn't have any such crashes ever after, though. So maybe it was some remaining incorrect state of the controller from the HM250JI...

 

I have a samsung 160gb hybrid drive and experience this also. However, not more than maybe once or twice a day. The computers speed is also unaffected by the click..

 

Where can I get an OS X utility called 'hdapm' and will that work for XP?

On another thread, someone recommended this: http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/

I installed the program, but I'm not smart enough to know what to type into it to get APM to 255. Any help?

 

OS X is the operating system that runs on Macs and 'hdapm' only exists for OS X. But it is similar to hdparm.

If you installed it properly, "hdparm -B 255 /dev/hda" should work. You will want to run this in a console so you can see if it works. To open a console, press Start -> Run, and enter 'cmd'.

 

Looks like it worked. Thanks for your help.

 

hi, i have this same drive, same problem. the sound, for those describing normal head parking sounds, is more like a sudden power cut or reset. when the heads whack into the lock by the spring, just as a sudden power interruption in most hard drives. it's that loud. the normal park/unpark operations in this drive are *silent*. As is the drive itself, generally, with the exception of this noise! Before i realised other people were experiencing the same thing, i just thought it was something of a periodic "dusting" of the head mechanism, but the abrupt nature and magnitude of the sound seem out of character. Is this happening on all types of busses or only INTEL ? I believe the original speed issue only affected intel sata controllers, i could be wrong on that. I hope this little tourrettes like outburst doesnt damage the heads

 

Hi. I had noticed the clicking sound after using this drive for 3 days. I've just upgraded the firmware (from HS100-06 to HS100-08) and the clicking seems to have reduced markedly. Anyway, even with the clicking it's still much quieter and nicer than the 160GB Hitachi drive it replaced.

Moreover, just by updating the firmware, my Windows Vista Experience Index subscore for the HDD increased from 4.5 - 5.2!!! The performance overall is much better. My laptop is a VAIO VGN-FZ18G.

I never had any of the hang problems, but suffered from slower than expected performance which is why I applied the update. I would recommed it to anyone who has this drive!

Cheers

 

I have the exact same "loud clicking noise with small freeze" happenning every hours (or so) and doesn't sound like normal head operation.
My laptop is a Dell XPS M1530 and I heard many other users complaining about this noise.
My HM250JI has a HS100-11 firmware and according to hdparm, the APM feature is disabled and set to a default value of 255.

Dell don't seems to know the origin of this problem and is replacing those noisy HM250 by WD HD's.

It would be nice to have a definitive answer form samsung, because it is scarying me.

Any news on your side?

 

I must say, I haven't noticed this loud clunk since the drive is back in its external Firewire enclosure. Of course it's not connected and running the whole time, but while it was inside my laptop the clunk sounds occurred at least once per hour. I have been using the external enclosure during several consecutive hours and haven't noticed any noises. So it may be related to the controller indeed?

 

If it's the controller, is it possible to find a solution?
I'm actually wondering if I should call dell or not.

 

May I ask if you've found any resolution? I just received a replacement 1330 with the 250 samsung HD and it has the "clunk" sound. Is it normal or not?

If you've found anything out, could you email me? [email protected]

Thanks

 

My new Samsung 320 GB (HM320JI, SATA,2,5 inch notebook) drive has the same problem. This click is alarming and not to be confused with head positioning of noisy drives as some suggest. If you really would hear it, you will be worried.

So far I have found the SMART attribute that records these loud head retraction clicks: it is S.M.A.R.T attribute #DF, load/unload retry, my current value is 428 after 202 hours of operation

The following links also contains a ref to a possible technical cause:
http://www.akngo.com/blog/samsung-hm320ij-320gb-clicking/#comment-66

What are these smart values of your clicking drive?

 

You don't want western digital either. Their 250GB HDD is even louder than samsung. Not only does it park noisly (slightly less loud than samsung), when reading and writing it is noisy. I returned a 1520 inspiron because I thought the WD drive was faulty as it grinded like a hard drive from a desktop 10 years ago. Shop replaced it with this 1520 inspiron with the samsung drive. Oh dear. I think its just normal though from what people say about it. Using software to disable power management seems to help reduce the noise level but Seagate or fujitsu seem to be the way to go. Hitachi also seems to have problems.

 

Update - I have noticed a problem via smart. I thought the G sense error rate value looked a little low at 62 compared to 100 for everything else and after installing a smart monitoring program it has fallen tfrom 62 to just 55 in 2 days! Running speedfans online smart analysis suggests the G sense error rating is below normal for this type of drive. It could be about to fail? There are a couple of other values below average too including realocated sector count and processing sector count.

I've downloaded the utility for the drive on samsungs website and set it to quiet mode. It was on AAM on - fast mode. Other option I could have is AAM off but I thought quiet mode would be nicer on the drive as it tries to reduce noise and therefore parking load? Its not exactly quiet is it if the heads park all the time!

The clicking was annoying but the occasional shrill beep from the drive far worse. Hopefully this will solve it and prevent the drive from destroying itself. Lets hope the damage isn't already done. The computer is 100% stable and never crashes and has never shown any other signs of hard drive failure apart from loud emergency loading/unloading and the beep.

I've heard others have this noise. If I hibernate my PC I'd say about 7 times out of 10 it does it, and it does it when idle about twice a week. When it does it when idle/web surfing its considerably louder. PC speaker is muted and it doesn't sound quite like an electronic beep.

 

My smart attribute BF - g sense error rate is changing with the clicks. The value for this is 55 and it dropped by 7 points in 2 days. I've set it to quiet mode hoping it will not emergency park so often as I fear its damaging the drive. IT now beeps sometimes too, a shrill beep that is not the same tone as internal PC speaker, or laptop speakers.
The HDD has never shown any signs of failrue apart from the noises and falling smart scores.

 

Wow, it's not supposed to beep, clicking is ok but bipping??? No, I suggest that you change it, and get another brand, like wd or hitachi.

 

i have had one for a long time now, and its normal, its not a flaw, its when the hard drives not active, the heads park and when theres the slightest bit of activity, they get shoved on back again,
its this exactly "SATA Power Management Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor Technology Load/Unload Head Technology", this hard drive actually improves on battery life, was about 30 mins more from my 4200rpm which i replaced.
don't worry about it mate

 

And what about the beeping? That is rare with my drives, but is does happen. Sounds like an alarm to me, cann't be 'normal''

Some statistics, I own 2 Samsung 320GB 2,5" drives. The first drive produces VEEERRRY load clicks and the beeps sometimes. The second drive produces most times soft clicks (not head movement/search).
The SMART load / unload retry count increase by one at every click on both drives. I have also includee the G-sense raw value

Code:

Raw SMART values
drive                1      2  drive 1 has LOUD clicks
power on hours     217     68
load/unload retry  458    127
g sense           6592   2103
one click every     28     32  minutes

 

my g sense is so much worse than yours its 740432 and getter worse every day. Everything else is normal.

HD Tune: SAMSUNG HM250JI Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 100 51 40 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 252 252 25 2687 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 2656 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 10 6 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 252 252 0 465 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 278 Ok
(BF) G-sense Error Rate 27 27 0 740432 Ok
(C0) Power Off Retract Count 100 100 0 84 Ok
(C2) Temperature 127 97 0 655397 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 100 100 0 27070 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 100 100 0 807 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 100 0 3024 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 252 252 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 252 252 0 0 Ok

Power On Time : 465
Health Status : Ok

 

paulmt123, I've the exact same problems as you and I'm also on my second Samsung HM320JI HDD now. The first one also had the clicks from the HDD and occasional beeps from the motherboard. I did not record any S.M.A.R.T values for the first one so I don't know how it died (it died after approx. 3 months).

My G-Sense Error Rate is also decreasing (86 now and only 1,5 months old) and I wrote to Samsung about it but they haven't replied yet. I really hope it's nothing but since the first one stopped working...

 

Ruub when you say it died, how exactly. Did it just totally stop working or was there signs of failure first such as read errors. This isn't my 2nd samsung hard drive, first was western digital which didn't break but was so loud when accessing files, it didn't sound good. Thought bearings sounded rough so I took laptop back after just 2 weeks and PC world replaced it with a new one which had the samsung in.
In the last 10 days my G sense error rate has stayed at 9, there have been no loud beeps or loud clicks. Raw read error as decreased from 40 to 10 (the raw value - the SMART value is 100) which suggests its correcting errors and not finding anymore.
I'm hoping its fixed itself by avoiding using bad parts of the drive because I'm doing important work due in this week and don't want to be minus a laptop. Have a spare external drive so I'll back up everything. Since disabling accoustic management though my laptop has ran much better. Just seems faster to do everything and the drive makes much less alarming noises although they have happened (not recently)

 

Yes, I got read errors. First when I tried to run a HD Tune benchmark and later I got the blue screen (unfortunately I had the restart option checked so I don't really know what it said or if it was HDD related). However, I got slightly worried by then and downloaded the Samsung HUTIL/ES-Tool (in iso format) Download here: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/downloads/ES_Tool_For_CDROM_Drive.zip

HUTIL found eight ECC errors on the drive and after a quick word with the retailer I got it replaced. Now I experience the same loud clicks and I am becoming slightly concerned. The problem is I really love this drive, it is so fast and whisper quiet except for the loud clicks.

 

I know, most of the time its a great drive. Fast (for a laptop) and extremely quiet. But every now and then its sounds like its going to stop working. A loud click is not reassuring. A beep is even worse. And I don't think its from motherboard either. I've heard the internal beeper and it doesn't sound like that. Very shrill noise, I think its actually caused by the drive itself. If you look on youtube they can make some amazing sounds! I suppose if you stop something fast spinning it might screech, especially when its doing 5400RPM! Not sure but it could be the actuator arm/heads scraping against one of the platters.

Not got a beep recently (within last 2 weeks) which is a good sign, but when I tried to load windows yesterday it paused at loading screen. There was a very loud click from hard drive but still no success. Switched it on and off and all was fine, loaded up in seconds as if nothing had gone wrong.

Thats the first time I've experienced anything approaching an error.
Who knows how long it will last.

I've tried the utility from samsung (Hutil/es) but it doesn't find even one error.

 

I didn't find any errors using HUTIL until HD Tune reported the read error. And I don't know about the beep. I've heard people who just has clicks and no beeps. Paulmt123, what laptop do you have? I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FE21M. I know other people with Vaios who has the same problem with these Samsung HDDs. I tried calling Vaio about the problem, but they didn't want to help since the HDD is a third party upgrade.

However, I've informed Samsung about the problem and also about the existance of this thread. Hopefully they know something we don't and can tell us.

I really hope your HDD doesn't die, paulmt123, but if it does would you like to inform me on what happened? Thanks.

 

Above is a graph (G-Sense Error Rate Current Value (y) vs. Power on time (x)). The dip seems worrying, but I am no hdd expert (I really wish Samsung would bother).

 

I have a dell inspiron 1520. If it happens with vaio's too then its likely the hard drive and not the motherboard thats at fault.

My G sense error rate is at 2, yes 2%! Value 999,999 and got worse after transporting to and from my parents place. It was working silently but tonight got a beep followed about half an hour later by a loud click.


Ruub What program have you used to plot that graph of G sense error rate
Very good one. I'd be interested to see how mine has deteriorated over time.
It was 62 on 5th June, a month later its fallen to just 2. Went down quickly at first and slowed, it now takes about a week to change.