Strange noise - sounds like faulty HDD?

I've had my laptop (Acer 5920G) for nearly 8 months and I've noticed that every now and then it will make a rather worrying scratchy / high-pitched sort of noise. I don't really know how best to describe it, but I've got it in my head that it must be HDD related - like perhaps the disk head scratching? The noise is definitely quite loud and lasts for about 1 second, although last time it was definitely a little longer than before.

Are there any other components that could make this kind of noise? I know it's all very vague... :S

Weird thing is, I've seen no errors in event viewer etc., and there really isn't much to show for these noises - nothing happens when I'm in the middle of word processing and the system just carries on as normal.

Any ideas guys?

 

Not my area but here goes. The only moving parts that I can think of and therefor likely culprits are HDD, Optical drive and fan. If you do not have backups now would be a good time even if it means buying an external if needed. Once you have backed up you could start using utilities to test the HDD. Not before backup as stress could accelerate failure.

 

turn it off right now! lol you could be causing a lot of damage.

I'd advise you that if you have warranty to get it sent away and checked by acer immediately, if you want to risk damaging the drive a little more then do backup your data or acer will most likely remove it (i found that out the hard way) or if they replace it you will lose it.

Cheers.

 

might be the HDD, the fan, or.... the processor/poweradapter... anyway... the most vital part is the HDD.. try downloading HDTune: http://www.hdtune.com/ to check the health of the drive... it is simple, dont worry... is should tell you drive Health: OK or Fail or you can read the SMART record.

 

Check the side of the laptop from which it`s coming out.
But a scratching sound is usually a fan scratching to something, HDD tend to do clicking souns and buzzing ones.
As sugested,back up all data and run further tests,but it`s likely that the HDD decided to die soon.

 

my laptop makes wieird noises now and then as well.its to hard to explain but when putting my head to the keyboard on the laptop then you can really hear strange noises.thing is it only does it now and then.

 

it might be the bearer in the fan getting bad. Not necesserely a hard drive.

 

I've tried HDTune and it didn't come up with any errors or anything. I've also done windows error check (several times) and the most it's ever said was something like "moving unused index files" - apart from that it's always been clean.

I'll probably send my laptop off in the summer before the warranty expires, and just back up small things like work and music until then. I can't think of anything else that is really important.

The fan idea is interesting though - like I already said, it's hard to describe the sound but it happens fairly rarely (maybe a few times a month - although I had it twice in one day); the system doesn't crash or anything; the sound lasts for about 1 second; it's quite high-pitched and sounds like a scratching noise, although I think there is a slight "click" at the end of it.

I've actually asked this question on the Acer forums and a couple of guys with the same laptop seem to have similar noises. I guess this isn't normal / acceptable though?

Thanks for the help so far

EDIT: Just throwing this into the mixer - but someone mentioned the motherboard... could this be making such a noise? They described their problem as a 'beep' which is like what I have, but I think there is a little bit of a scratching noise to the beep. I'm going to read about the motherboard issue...

 

If you think it is HDD related then tell us what HDD as this could be connected to that. If it is a Acer issue then more likely fan as that is what is unique. As long as you are backed up not much more at this point I would do. Pay attention to when it happens in the future, are you accessing your HDD? is it parking or shutting down because you have it set to do so (Windows) after a certain amount of no activity? Do you have a temp monitor? If so are the temps high so fan might be kicking in hard? Just thoughts hope it helps.

 

If you have a different HDD around, you might want to try that for a few days and see if the noise comes back. Best way to eliminate the faulty drive problem,if any.
If not, I`m pretty sure it`s the fan.

 

Could you post the model of your hard drive? Every now and again the hard drive in my M1530 will make this kind of beeping/high pitched noise, and it's really loud. I know for a fact that a) it is coming from the hard drive, and b) is not part of the normal operation of the drive. It happens at random intervals and has been going on since I had it (5 months now).

I have a Toshiba MK1637GSX

 

I'll go and check (I'm not at my laptop right now) but I'm 99% sure it's a Toshiba from when I have checked previously. I'll try to get a detailed model number or something - where do I need to look to find that information?

But that's definitely very interesting indeed ... sounds like we both have Toshiba HDD and they both make crazy beeping noises.

(Since my last post, I also read something about Santa Rosa C2D processors sometimes emitting noises when they hit certain frequencies / GHz ... but my guess is that the processor fluctuates it's speed fairly often and so there would be more of these noises if this were true...so I think HDD or motherboard or fan are still the best bets)

 

Just install HDTune and it will show the name of the hdd in a top box.

 

Ok - I can confirm that my HDD is the exact same model that you have. We may have found our problem - are you sure it is the HDD though? What makes you so sure?

What do you think we should do now? My laptop hasn't shown any errors or anything (yet) but I guess the noise is a sign of problems to come. Should we contact Toshiba or our laptop manufacturer (Acer for me..)?

 

My suggestion is repost the question in this forum as "have you other owners of this HDD" experienced similar problems? Does it mean failure is imminent, what causes it? And I thought I suggested this possibility first? So include me in the "love fest". Good luck, do post as a HDD question.

 

Sorry powerpack you deserve a lot of the credit! I'll make another post like you say and see what comes out of it.

Just going to e-mail Toshiba about this too...

 

Toshiba gave me a very brief reply saying that our model of HDD shouldn't be making this noise, and that I should try to replace it. I guess I will be trying Acer's repair service over the summer ...

If Acer repaired my HDD, would they put another 'hidden recovery partition' on the new HDD?