Ticking noise from HDD

So I started hearing this ticking noise from my HDD when it's idling. It sounds exactly like a clock tick, and whenever it happens, which is usually every five sec, the HDD LED indicator flashes. I had my laptop for about two weeks, but I've only been noticing the noise since yesterday.

Since I had installed no new programs/updates other than rivertuner recently, the noise must've been there, but the rattling/buzzing sound that I was getting with fan firmware .h must have been masking it.

So I'm wondering if anyone else's getting this noise. The manufacturer of my HDD is Fujitsu, but I was also getting a similar noise (but more metallic sound) from Hitachi and WD laptop HDD's. I previously had an HP laptop with two Hitachi HDD's, and it was a torture machine.

 

U can reduce ticking significantly by doing the following:

1) shut off all activities when windows is idle. Open up your schedule list and u will notice there is alot of activities line up to run at a certain time. shut them up as most of them is unnecessary.

2) run spybot or adaware. u could be getting a bug that transmit info out of your pc.

3) Install a firewall (I recommend COMODO. its free, use less memory and powerful). Set that firewall to paranoid mode and u will see the amount of activities being caught b4 your eyes. From bugs to software auto updating to files updating all the time. U can ask firewall to remember things u approved to run (eg. windows update, search index etc..)

4) After 2 weeks u will hear very very little ticking. Even if it tick u know what that tick is for.

Hope it works for you.

Rexi

 

It could be some part of the power (battery, cable, etc) causing issues.
Its common on desktops that the PSU starts to fail and your hard drive will stutter or click.. I would recommend taking a backup of the hard drive or any important items now. Once I hear clicking Its usually a sign the hard drive is on its last limb...

Good luck!!

 

I would recommend starting easy and working your way backwards. If you are interested, check out this simple program that analyzed HDD SMART reporting. IF your drive is failing, this would be the quickest method to discover it without performing any scan. Remember, your hard drive has to natively support SMART, or the SMART feature would need to be enabled in your BIOS to ensure it is reporting correctly.

http://www.panterasoft.com/ HDD Health v3.3 Build 217 Beta

Unfortunately I only have XP Pro here at work, so I haven't tested it in Vista. Give it a shot. You'll need to select the drive, then "Drive" from the toolbar and "SMART Attributes". Specifically, your default value is "100", and any issues will cause a fluctuation in value.

Pay attention to these specific areas, as they will be a good indicator of actual failure issues:
-(07)Seek Error Rate
-(C7)UDMA CRC Error Count
-(05)Reallocated Sector Count

This program is free for non-commercial use only.

 

why don't manufactures built-in HDD diagnostic utilities in BIOS anymore? they are handful tools. I had one on my first desktop.

 

Obviously, this notebook is haunted. If you do not do something about this right away, the evil spirits inside will take over by costing you your job and ruining your life.

Luckily I specialize in the disposal of haunted laptops. For a small fee I will take care of the problem for you, quickly and professionally.

 

If you know where to get them there are tons online. I have cd's full of em

 

Thank you guys for your input. I tried HDD Health, and all areas except UDMA CRC Error Count are showing 100. I also tested it using Fujitsu's diagnostic tool, and it passed the test. Fyi, it's not giving the clicking noise that is indicative of failing hard drives. I had exchanged my HP twice for defective pixels and such, and all three of them (w/ Hitachi HDD) had the same noise issues:
http://tinyurl.com/4xqex4

The noise was different (and louder) from the one I'm getting from Fujitsu, but nonetheless, it only happened when the HDD was idling, and at least once every thirty sec or so. My 2.5" HDD from WD also makes the same noise as Hitachi. I didn't bother to record the Fujitsu noise because it literally sounds like a clock tick.

I do use firewall (COMODO) and antivirus program (AVG). And I used FileMon to monitor hard drive activity, but I found nothing out of ordinary. Maybe I'll be needing your services, Quantumstate.

 

So I found out what was causing the constant noise. The message says "System:4 IRP_MJ_WRITE* C:\$LogFile," but I don't know if one of the programs I installed is doing this or if it's a normal Windows process.

 

Update: it looks like it was Intel wireless processes that kept writing (or at least caused the system to write) to C:\$LogFile every five second.

 

Lol. Intel at it again..
I had issues with another program constantly writing ,and I was losing disk space,until I blasted it away.
Good that you found it. How did you go about it?

 

Since I had only about ten programs installed, I decided to reinstall XP SP2 and monitor hard drive activity after each installation of a new program. I installed COMODO, waited about five minutes for the HDD to be idle. I concluded that it wasn't COMODO. Next, I moved on to Intel PROSet/Wireless Software. The IRP Write didn't stop after five minutes, so I disabled the wireless device, and sure enough, the noise ceased to exist.

 

Ouch,that sounds like a long time. I was hoping you had a disk usage monitoring program,since I have over 500 apps installed,just for future reference

 

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but I used FileMon to monitor hard drive activity: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896642.aspx

I had to check the "Advanced Output" option to see the IRP Writes.

 

Looks good enough. Thanks!