Tick-Tick Sounds from 100GB-7200rpm HDD of brand new T61

I got my T61 yesterday and played with it for hrs since then.

My problem is that the HDD (100GB-7200rpm) makes ocasional tick-tick sounds that are quite noticeable at night. I know HDD makes some "normal" clicking/scratching sounds while accessing data. But I don't feel like the tick-tick sounds are normal. I may be too sensitive to those noises.

Anyhow, for those of you have a T61 w/ 100GB-7200rpm HDD, does your HDD make the same tick-tick sounds besides the normal clicking/scratching sounds while accessing data?

The tick-tick sounds are noticeable especially at night.

FYI, I run vista home basic w/ 2GB, m140, turbo 1GB.

 

Clicking has depended on the drive for me. I have a hitachi 5400rpm drive that likes to click and seek every so often... I think it parks during idle activity. The Fujitsu and Seagate drives I have don't make any of this noise at all. Any ideas what brand drive your T61 was shipped with?

 

I think it is a Seagate 100GB-7200rpm.

 

I had a couple (4 actually) of Hitachi 7k100s and 1 seagate 7200.1 and all but one hitachi's died from the 'click of death'... i was told it was the noise from the drive recalibrating. Cause should be the expansion (from excessive heat) of the platters.

Eg. backup often...

 

Mine is quiet.

 

No way. You need to have that checked out. A HDD should not be making a tick tick. Ran a pc repair shop for 5 years and I've never known that to be a sign of anything but a failing drive. There are many HDD tests you can download and even run one f them thru the blue button (Thinkvantage) on the keyboard at boot up.

We used an IBM HDD test that worked really well so hopefully the 1 loaded onthe T61 is just as good. try that first.

 

I did some websearch. Is thermal recalibration related to the tick-tick(or tap-tap) sounds? The head position needs re-calibration for better accuracy; disk is wobbled due to excessive heat????

Anyhow, I may call the customer service.

thanks guys.

 

Yep i had that too... When i ran seatools from seagate it always failed the tests... but i'm not sure if it really failed or the software is not compatible with the drive.....


Anyway i returned mine because of other issues as well..


oh also the laptop was quite silent except for the HD... i could hear it spin and it was quite loud... i wish i got the 5400rpm.

Next time around i'm only getting a 5400rpm drive.

--

 

I have exactly the same hdd and mine also makes this annoying tick-tick sound. But this is not everything - occasionally I can hear 'bouncing head' sound...

JWC, did you contact the customer service?

Does anybody know how long changing hdd in service (in US) can take?

 

Does it sound like a dropping marble? If that is the noise you're talking about then it is pretty common with the 100GB 7200rpm HD. Many people have reported this sound. I don't think it's anything that is bad for the HD, but it can be annoying to some people.

 

Yes, this sounds pretty like dropping marble...

So I shouldn't be worried about it? ;-)

 

How frequently does it happen? I don't know much about the issue but I know it's been reported. I think you can find out more about it if you do a google search. Maybe someone else could chime in on whether the sound is actually bad or not.

 

It happens on avarage once per hour...

I've done a little research on the web, found some posts but it looks that there is still no solution on this one.
HDD's firmware problem is mentioned and/or issue with new intel chipset not working well with this drive...

Anyway it seems not to be bad for hdd (I couln't find any case). Just annoying.

 

I didn't notice any HD noises on mine in the 4 days I had it. But then I haven't even had the machine for almost 3 weeks. It's being "repaired". The part "is not in stock". Bios card I guess.

 

Yeah I saw a thread on this not too long ago on these forums, don't know where it went... Like silmak said, they said it had to do with a firmware problem on the Seagate which causes the HD head to bump against the wall of the HD creating the so called "bouncing marble" sound. I have a 60GB 7200 rpm HD on my T60 and it has never acted like this. I don't know what type of brand of HD I have. Any way for me to check without opening the HD compartment?

 

xp: Right click on My Computer, Proporties, Hardware tab, Device manager, unwrap Disk Drives and here is name of harddrive (just model in my case, i needed to google it)

vista: i think steps are similar...

 

search for marble here, and youll find the thread. its common with the 100gb 7200 seagate drive. Neither lenovo or seagate cares enough to fix it.

 

I had the same problem as well; and because of that, I have returned it to Lenovo. It was a very annoying sound to have on a brand new PC.

My suggestion is to stay away from the faster seagate drive. I think people that have the lower speed hard drive don't seem to have the problem.

 

I think that noise is the hard drives parking when idle... however I myself would stare at my T60 for at least 10 minutes and you keep hearing the HDD activity... and yet i'm not downloading anything - I am online though. It's just sitting there doing nothing... it kind of bugs me as I set the timer for spin down on the HDD via Power Manager to be 30 secs yet it never spins down! Anyone know a way to *make* or find out why the HDD activity is going on even though I'm not doing anything?

 

Does somebody know?

 

If it's struggling because a bearing is on the way out, or something else is wrong, it will shudder and click.

I have the same HD in my brand new T61, and it is almost completely silent.

 

I highly doubt my HDD is going out or has something wrong with it. I have PerfectDisk installed, which does automatic defragmentation. At first I thought that was it, but it is set to work only when not on battery power.

 

My T61 also has the same problem. I am ultra sensitive to sounds at night therefore threw away 2 wall clocks at home which was causing the same tick tick sound.

Now, this T61 is killing me with this horrible tick-tick-tick.. sound every second. Is there any fix to this problem ?

I see several hits on the laptopsreview site about this problem on different laptop thinkpads generally but no answers whatsoever.

thanks in advance.

 

mine too, Seagate 100gb 7200rpm.

and that's why it got replaced a month later

 

You can try HD tune to try to dial down the acoustics or call up lenovo tech.

 

I have a Hitachi 160 GB 7200 RPM. Never heard he sounds but today the office is quiet and am not working at home with the kids playing and wifey nagging me. Heard some sounds for about <3 mins similar to what you describe. Is there a problem or is this a false negative?

 

Actually IMO its the Disk Keeper software that Lenovo added and it defrags at inopportune times. Disable it.

 

Ok, are you talking about the normal ticking when the HDD is accessing data?

 

Eh I kept diskkeeper actually I like it's defragging process but I don't have it on auto start so it can't do it's thing in the background.

 

same here for my T61... but only when it is idle-ing... a friend of mine has an acer, and there is the same tick-tick sound on idle-ing... i'm agree that it must be head of hdd parking.