Sony SZ650 Hard Drive Clicking Noise

Does anyone else's SZ650's (stock) hard drive make clicking noises fom time to time during regular activity and sometimes idle?

 

yes, mine does this also. I think its normal

 

I've looked around the forums and it only seems like you and I are the only ones admitting to this HDD clicking noise, though.

 

I hear the clicking noise too, usually when drive idle.

HD seems to work fine (other than the usual Vista thrashing - which you can confirm in Performance Monitor is related to prefetch, indexing or pagefile).

 

This is only an assumption, but it is not baseless.

I assume that the "clicking" would be the HDD reader arm disengaging from the platters.

 

I actually contacted SeaGate about the clicking a few weeks ago. Level 1 support will tell you to return it... but sony will just run some tests (none of them are sound tests) and will say its perfectly running. I did get in touch with level 2 support at seagate (the seatools seems not to work o hybrid drives..) and he confirmed that the noise was normal, and was just the arm parking and accessing the platter. If you set the drive so that the arm never parks, you will only hear the noise on startup (but this will drain more power).

 

Would anyone mind recording that noise? Is it loud enough for the SZ mic to pick up?

 

How do you set the arm never to park?

 

mine has the same clicking noise.

 

My hard drive does it also...

I think Notebook Hardware control has some settings to change the acoustics of the drive. Change it from something along the lines of 'quiet' to 'loud', so arm doesn't park.

 

I just got my SZ650 and it also has the hard drive clicking noise. It kind of sounds like a little "chirp." Can anyone confirm that the sound is like a chirp? The sound is pretty annoying and I am hoping I can ignore it.

 

yeah, i think at 7200rpm your hdd will definitely get noisy
i experience this too but only because i upgraded from 5400rpm

 

Does anyone who owns a SZ650 not have the clicking noise? I only ask because I had to exchange my SZ initially because of the yellow lines being created by the LCD, and I don't remember the hard drive of that one making any clicking sounds.

 

do you guys have the 160gb hybrid drive?

 

Nope, I just have the stock 160HDD that comes with the 650.

 

Doesn't the 650 come stock with a 160 'hybrid' drive?

I haven't felt its hybrid-ness yet... Still significantly slower than my Raptor-desktop.

 

it has 256mb of on-board ram for the hd, but i don't know how to mess around with it (something to do with readyboost, i think. I disabled it because it caused about 15minutes of constant hard drive activity everytime i start windows). the 160gig is in the form of your mainstream laptop hard drives.

 

I also have this problem....

but no worries.. there is a fix for it.

SSD drive =)

next problem.. finding money to buy one!

 

i once returned a TX because it made that annoying clicking noise. I'm sorry to hear that Sony still uses drives that do that!

 

If my assumption is true, it's a feature of the hard drives they choose to use, and it helps prevent data loss. They boast about it on the Japanese website, saying that, by the reader disengaging, it helps prevent surface damage, and thus protect important data.

The drives that do it are supposed to have a 3-dimensional sensor that will disengage it, if it senses abnormal acceleration and or vibration.

 

hi,there. can you tell me how to disabled it. thanks. cause my also spin 15 minutes constantly. that bugs me.

 

Hello,

I've just recently purchased sz650, and have the same problem like yours... the weird HDD "Spin up/down" noise.. it's like the sound that you hear everytime you turn on/off your PC HDD...

It happens during idle time.. most of the time..

Is this a faulty HDD??? or, this hybrid HDD is supposed to work with this "noise"?

Some of you suggested that this might be caused by Sony's HDD protection software.. has any one actually tried disabling that feature, and solved the "noise" problem?

Thanks,

 

u guys no what?
i think the question we should all be asking is if
this noise is caused by Vista's excessive demand on hardware.
i bet there is no one with an XP OS which is experiencing this much noise

or it my just be the quality of the HDD brand like everyone says...

or it might be as a result of upgrading from 5400rpm to 7200rpm like in my own case...
even with win VISTA my note is totally silent at 5400rpm hitachi sata150

I still use the outdated S5 Series VAIO

 

Download a tool call notebook hardware control....in harddisk tab set harddrive mode to 'Max Performance' and the noise will be gone...

works on 32 Bit vista.....

No 64 bit solution found still....!!

 

Notebook hardware control fixes this, just set maximum performance on the HDD and no more clicks.

I don't know what sony was thinking with this kind of power management, the noise is just so annoying that any power savings are completely offset. Not to mention it sounds like a hardware failure.


NHC is kind of a nifty utility too.

 

Toshibas click more than the Hitachis.

The 7200RPM Hitachis click less than the 5400RPM ones.

Effectively it parks the head and because the OS (Vista) reads consistently, you may hear it park, then go read something and park again.

Notebook Hardware Control will not do the job efficiently. Both Toshiba And Hitachi has a Bootable CD that can change the drive from 'Power Saving' to 'Performance Mode'.

Search around Google. If you don't find it, I will find it for ya.

Sony wasn't thinking because this is the default state of the hard drive. Also if they have it at performance mode, they cannot claim the 30 days of battery life

 

I can tell you for sure that the crazy non-stop clicking I hear on my new sony SZ notebook is related to the HDD protection, because my task bar is firing up a little bubble saying 'HDD protection activated' or something to that effect every 3 seconds and the click occurs at exactly the same time that the bubble pops back up. I didnt bump or drop the comp, so no idea why the hdd protection is constantly triggered. Sometimes if I look at it first thing in the morning, the hdd protection will have finally inactivated itself, AND the clicking stops. Unfortunately, within minutes of me using the computer, HDD protection reactivates and the clicking resumes. Will talk to customer service about it later, when i get home from work. It is supposed to be triggered by "shock." I am wondering if this usually refers to physical shock like dropping the computer vs electrical shock. I am at an old house with some not so great electrical set up and only using a 6outlet belkin unit for surge protection. Also, could the problem be that I have a bad HD. I dunno. I am just a newb with a clicking computer.

 

A quick experment to see if it is electrical shock could be to run the laptop on battery power... Although I'm pretty sure it is physical shock. And from the sounds of it, there might be something wrong with your hard drive...

 

wanabe - thx very much for taking the time to answer my question. I have tried this already. But the HDD protection continues to click and bubble keeps coming up. I wasnt sure if it was repeatedly perceiving shocks, or if it just was staying in protected mode and not ready to return the arm back to the drive. I changed it to low level protection to see if it would change anything, but I am still constantly seeing the HDD protection bubble coming up, all the clicking, etc. Finally I turned off HDD protection, and the clicking stopped, plus the HDD protection bubble turned off. I then went to turn it back on at lowest setting, to see if it would start working again. Well the help menus says go to Start -> "all programs" ->"Vaio Central" and click "security." I do not even have a "vaio central." I have "vaio security center" which is just an annoying sony link to some additional security software i can buy. Now trying to figure out how to get back to turn HDD protection back on - to see if deactivating and reactivating it could have helped. You might be right that there is a bad hard drive. Will keep you updated. Thx much for the help. I am working this terrible night shift 4pm to 7 a.m. and it is really difficult to get anything figured out with the computer cuz I am not home much to work on it. Hopefully will get something figured out tonight.