Hard Drive Got Louder In S54B.

I've been loving my S54b (S580 in the States I think), but today I noticed that it seemed to be a lot louder than it usually is. I have always loved how quiet this machine is. In normal web use, office applications and even when watching a DVD the fan almost never comes on and the hard drive has always been really quiet. Until today. Today when I turned it on I could hear a rather loud hum coming from the front right side of the computer, and I think that is where the hard drive is. I know it isn't the fan because it wasn't even spinning. It is as loud as my old Toshiba was and isn't extremely loud or anything, but it is noticeably louder and the him can be heard while watching a movie, playing music at a low volume and just when doing regular work. When the fan kicks in the computer is now twice as loud as it used to be.

My question is, has my hard drive somehow gotten louder, or is it the fan? What would have caused this? I travel almost every day with this machine and always put it in a protective case and baby it to death. Right now I am on a business trip in Brazil and have been traveling a lot with it and have been on lots of airplanes (I live in Japan, so it took a lot of flights to get here). My computer has been in the protective case in my bag the whole time. I did bump it one time though, while I was in the airport going through security. However I used it later that day in my hotel and I didn't notice any increase in noise. I just used it last night and it was as quiet as it always was, but now it is much louder.

Was that bump I made enough to mess up the hard disk and make it louder? Was it just due to carrying it around in my bag, even though it's in a good case? Or is it something else? Has this happened to anyone else? Is it worth it to try to fix and/or return it?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Hi I got the same problem w ith my FE. I am not sure what the noise is, but im leaning towards thinking that my hard drive got louder. It starts the moment I turn on my notebook, I used to think it was the fan but now i am almost sure it's the hard drive. Everything seems to be working normally except for this loud spinning noise. It used to be a lot mor silent. Have you found any solution to this? Thanks!

 

Hi Arcanum,
it does sound like the hard drive to me, you can try by using NHC to power down the hard drive. Hard drives do tend to get louder over time, don't ask me why though.
I would run some tests to at least check if all the SMART values are allright. Do you still have warranty?

Good luck

 

Hi Bomfunk,
How do you check SMART values? I ran a sony hardware diagnostic and everything was ok. My FE is only 3 months old but I moved to Germany to study. I dont know if Sony will honor my warranty here. Is NHC a reliable program? Any risks of hardware damage by using it?
Thanks!

 

NHC is very reliable, no risk of hardware damage if you don't fiddle with the voltages. There are plenty of other free software tools which check the SMART values, try googling.
I don't know about the warranty, probably have to ask Sony directly.
Where are you studying in Germany?