Weird sound/beep/tick coming from my M860TU

I`m actually worried about this noise. When it happens, everything lags/freezes for a second. From what I can hear it comes from the middle of the laptop where the northbridge are. It ticks all the time when I put my ear to it (no, not the sound that the BIOS update fixed and the bluetooth trick) and sometimes it makes a "loud" ticking sound followed by a louder beeping sound. In between those two, the laptop freezes for a second.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhfVUCaQElE Turn up the volume a little. The sounds comes at 12-14 second mark.

What can it be?

 

Could it be your hard drive? Check your S.M.A.R.T. stats and run a surface scan in HD Tune.

 

Happened with mine same, but only if notebook online 2 days and all time downloading something. 1 night of sleep mode and it's ok again.

When I've attached copper to CPU and VGA the issue is not repeating anymore. 4th day no sound still right now. Dunno which connection it have. Probably general temperature at all there doing something with HDD.

I moved HDD to ODD, so the temerature is low. But was ~40-42C. After copper it's 32-36. So looks like HDD can't work long time with hight temps (>40c).

 

You are probably right about the DLing part, but it seems to happen without the DLing and laptop being on for ~12 hours too, because I`m DLing to my external HDD most of the time.

The temps are fine. Will see tonight if it happends. Just turned on my laptop.

What is S.M.A.R.T stats? Running the HDtune scan.

 

You can check SMART on one of the pages in HD Tune.

 

This is the damn Seagate hard drive...
There are more topics about this @ the Seagate forums..

I have the same Model: ST9500420AS, Firmware: 0002SDM1..

Seagate support:
I can send this model back for guarantee but i don't like getting a refurbished one.. (No firmware update will solve this i think)

Don't buy this product.. nobody go to WD

 

Welcome to the forums

I have the same model but a "G" behind AS. Think the "G" means the G-force protection. Anywho, I`ll check out the Seagate forums.

 

HDtune benchmark. This can`t be good.

Where excatly do I check for SMART, because there are no options.

 

The Health tab is where HDTune puts the SMART info, check if everythink is "OK"

Also, do an error scan.

 

There is nothing under the health tab. Pic. Am I supposed to do something to get the info up?

I`ll do the error scan.

 

i have had he exact same problem with my m980nu.

it first started as a loud knocking/clicking from one of the harddrives. Hdtune showed no errors though and performance seemed to be uneffected. However every now and again the knock/clicking would be accompanid by a system beep.

i have 3 500gb hdd's in raid 0.

it is currently back at the seller for repairs.

 

check your "load cycle count" in HDtune smart data ,mine goes up everytime i hear a clunk,click , when the hdd is parking it`s head in power saver mode.

Try a util called hdparm it got rid of the noise on my WD 500gb.

 

The error scan showed nothing wrong.

It won`t show me any information in the HDtune smart data. Under the Health tab there is nothing like my pic previous post shows.

Now, the comp has been on for ~9 hours, and no clunk, click.

Are there any other ways to get some smart data?

 

Download this hdd tester from WD , it works with any make, but it will show your smart data.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=702&sid=3&lang=en

 

Here is the pic of the smart info. I dont know what I`m looking for

 

I cannot tell from that smart data.

The hdparm program is below, it says it 32bit but it might work on 64 , give it a go.

download the first one. " hdparm-6.9-20070224.win32-setup.exe"

http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/

 

Didnt work that well. Just shut down.

 

I have the EXACT same problem (using a 500GB drive). I bought a m860etu from www.pro-star.com and received it on 9-15-2009.

It happens randomly for me... I checked my hard drive and no errors. No errors on the SMART either.

I don't know if it has something to do with the temps or not but the whole system seems to run kinda hot...
CPU (q9000, all cores): ~50C
HD: ~60C
GPU (GeForce GTX 260m): ~62C
Overall System Temp: ~64C

Thanks for posting that youtube vid because thats the exact some sound i hear... so bizarre.

Did you find anymore info about it?

 

Welcome to the forum

Someone posted a link to the seagate forum. Looks like it happends to all 500gb 7200.4 versions.

Your temps do seem a bit too high? Are you using it on your lap or covering the air intake or something? What are the temps while gaming?

 

I'll check the Seagate forums out... not a big deal, was just curious what was up. Can't wait for those solid state drives to lower in price and increase capacity...

Actually, I only use the laptop on a desk. Its elevated off the desk by the bottom laptop stand things... but not by much.

What temps do you usually get idle and gaming? We have a similar machine right even though mine is a M860 ETU?

My average gaming temps (playing Company Of Heroes, Almost Max Settings):
CPU: 65C
GPU: 66C
HD: 55C
Overall System Temp: 76C

I'm going by the temps in the SpeedFan program but not sure how accurate they are. The laptop definitely starts pushing some heat during gaming though...

Thoughts? Think I should pickup a laptop cooler?

 

My hdd in an inspiron 1505 sometimes makes a screeching sound and when it does everything lags for a second, but it's very rare. Mine is also a seagate.

 

Some follow up info on this whole thing...

So the whole problem is the Seagate 500GB HD - ST9500420AS, firmware 0002SDM1.

Seagate forum discussing this issue: http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=14667

The same issue is happening for the Mac Book Pros and here is the fix they used (set APM to MAX): http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/07/13/stop-the-beeps-with-the-7200-rpm-hard-disks-of-the-macbook-pro


You can set the APM to max in Windows using HDDScan apparently, but this isnt really a good solution... as it just means the HD uses a bunch of power from what I understand.

So I guess we're waiting for Seagate to issue a firmware update?

 

If anyone cares... I RMA'ed my laptop that had this issue and they replaced the hard drive.

I talked with the tech support guy and he just told me I was crazy... He said they didn't hear any sound. He said as a "courtesy" he'd replace the drive...

I think the whole thing was heat related because now I have no more beeping and my temps have dropped considerably. No sure if it was the drive running too hot or if they replaced something else and didn't tell me but seems to be fixed.