continuous hard drive vibrations, new laptop - is it normal?

Hello,

I just bought a Fujitsu-Siemens ultra-portable laptop (Amilo Si1520) and I like it quite a lot. However, there is a continuous vibration that may be felt when posing the hands on it. This vibration seems to come from the Fujitsu, SATA (5400 rpm, 100Gb) disk because it will stop if I stop the disk. On my older laptop, I only had vibrations in periods of intense disk activity. And on an small iBook that my brother has, no vibrations at all are felt when the laptop is on!

Did any of you experience similar problems? Could it be the rotation speed or the absence of good anti-vibration mechanisms in the building of the laptop? Thank you.

Cosmin

 

Welcome to Notebookreview.com

JC

 

if it's to the point where you can notice it, then something's "wrong". the bottom line is that you are the customer and if you are unhappy, the company (whoever it may be; dell, fujitsu, ibm, whatever) should do what it takes to make you happy.

that being said, before you do anything drastic, you can try to take the HD out and reseat it. maybe that will help. other than that, i'd say get a replacement.

 

Thanks for the optimistic point of view on companies and for the answer. I'll try to see with the reseller if I can get a replacement. By the way, how do you reset a hard drive? Thanks, Cosmin

 

it should just be a removable drive. probably a couple screws on the bottom of the computer. take the drive out and then put it back in = reseating the HD

 

OK, thank you very much. This is probably the solution. I looked today in a computer shop and almost every ultraportable vibrates noticeably; some of them to a disturbing degree (a white asus, wj series I think had the record). I'll try to reseat the HD on my laptop but now I'm confident that the hard drive is not "unhealthy".

I did not think about it before, but if someone wants to buy an ultraportable, the only way to know whether the vibrations transmitted to the entire laptop are a problem is to go to a shop and to raise the active laptop between your hands and "feel" if the vibration level is too high. This is not a problem for larger laptops, I think isolation is better since there is more space in the box.

 

i had a sortof ultraportable before the notebook i have now. it was the inspiron 2100 and was dell's 12" notebook before the 300m and the 700m.

there was no 'vibration' with it at all.

personally, if there was, i would return the computer or get a different brand altogether. i would not be satisfied if my computer vibrated so much that it caused me to ask about it on a notebook forum.

 

You're probably right. I mean, a laptop, whatever the size should not vibrate noticeably.However, I was more worried about a defect in a new computer than about the vibration itself. That's why I asked on a forum. Thank you for your time. Cosmin

 

If you're having vibration during hdd seek you should try a program like Systool which allows you to adjust the acoustic management properties. Basically you're able to adjust a slider to balance performance vs. noise. Taking down the performance marginally should help with the vibrations problems you're having.

Also NHC has a section to tweak AMM but it uses a numerical setting vs. a slider. The setting is saved to the harddisk so changing it in any program will have the same effect.

 

Thank you for the tip. The vibrations I was asking about are permanent. In fact, hd seeking just makes very faint noises and no vibrations. I was wondering if all this problem is not coming from a fan that is coupled with hd activity.Cosmin