X41 hard drive clicking sound

Hi all. I recently got my brand new X41. It's a pretty solid machine. But its hard drive always make constant tick tick sound especialy when the machine is in semi-idle state like when you surf the internet. I was very concerned about it thinking the hd might going to fail, so I called support and managed to get an exchange (a new one). But what surprised me is this new machine still has this kind of frequent clicking sound. It annoys me because I can't believe I got two brand new notebooks with the same hd problems. But on the other hand I became not so sure this sound could lead to hd failure because couple of hd test tools report no error about the hd. So I want to find a solution to it. Either I call the support to get a new hd (probably still with the annoying sound) or I leave it alone until someday it shows any failing sign. I'm curious that if all X41/40 owner experience this hd problem. FYI my hd is hitachi DK13FA-40B.

 

Hi drlx,

My X40 also have this noise, as a matter of fact, its pretty loud. I can hear this "tact" noise in another room quiet in the night. My X40 is 1.3 years old and in June the drive failed on me, I got it replace by IBM and this new one is louder then ever. I also asked IBM about this, they say its pretty normal, its the drive head parking, well, I still don't quite believe thats the is motion does not do any damage to the drive. Sometimes, it does it quite often while idling like you mentioned, when it happens, it always gets my heart beating...

 

This seems to be an almost universal problem with this hard drive e.g. see

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=15769

 

increasing the amount of RAM you have will help this, but yes, the "tick" you refer to on the hard drive is present if you tune your ears into it. Some people seem to claim it as being louder than what I experience though. I'm in a room with the refrigerator humming a few feet away and that's much louder than this, with the TV on I can't hear the hard drive and I can't hear the tick when I'm over 20 feet away in a quiet room (I leave the notebook on while going to sleep and it's about this distance away!)

 

Thank you for your replies. The sound is right there whatever how loud it is. It's certainly a design issue (or maybe defect) and is unacceptable. I had several notebooks before and never seen this happened. It just like there is a big clock right beside you and it goes twice faster than other clocks. I can't believe IBM continue to put this hd into their laptop while knowing this problem. There are two things I'm wondering. One is if this sound is related to any hd malfunction, the second is if all hitachi 1.8'' hd make this sound.
drlx

 

The problem seems inherint with the drive. I had an X41t that had the ticking problem. I upgraded to a larger drive and it also had the issue. Alot of guys on the tabletpc forums are complaining about the drive noise. Seems to be harmless but it can be annoying.

 

harmless? Personally I doubt it. Since it's a quite universal problem, I think we the users deserve satisfying answer. Those tech surpport poeple won't tell you anything. I don;t know if there is other way to complain this problem beside calling support.

 

People have been complaining about the clicking harddrives since the X4x series came out. If the sound was the heads hitting the platters or causing damage you would know fairly quickly. Many of the tabletpc guys have called up Lenovo and some have received replacements. The replacement drives have the same problem. You can hear a similar noise on the Hitachi 5K80 series (2.5"). You can stop the noise on those drives by d/l one of several available programs that can access the hd firmware. You can change the powersaving mode to make the drive "quiet". It eliminates the clicking noise. Problem is that Hitachi did not implement (or allow access) that function in the 1.8" drives so you can't change it via software.

 

As many had seen long long time ago, this horrible TICK sound still exists on newer laptops as well.

T61
X61
T60
X60

ALL of are suffering from this fatal disease. A flawed design screwed in these laptops. I am using a older T41 and it runs ultra quiet without any issues.

I don't know what's going on. Many say it's the hard drive, I am not sure if it's the hard drive or something else.

Anybody has any clue, please post. I am getting sick of this tick tick sound from the laptop.

Thanks.