Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[Royal]

Hello,

My Seagate Momentus 7200rpm ST9250421ASG is very noise. I own a Dell XPS M1530 laptop and Dell has replaced the hdd two times already. So this is my third ST9250421ASG which is making this noise. The fact that the chances of three hdd's being defect are very small makes me wonder whether the sound I'm hearing is normal... although I never heared a laptop hdd being audible even when placed in the other side of the room while on Vista desktop with no special applications running.

Anyway, it sounds like a scratching, crisping, crackling or sparkling sound – unfortunately I can't describe it really well. The funny thing is that the sound gets extremely loud when the laptop is moved (for example when lifting the front up a few centimers, the hdd is placed in the front of the laptop). Is it normal that these hdd's (Free Fall Sensor) become more than twice as noisy when the laptop is moved? It sort of sounds like there's a screw or marble rolling around in the laptop (which is not actually the case )!

I already tried several "solutions" like setting the BIOS HDD Performance mode to Quiet, disabling Vista Indexing and using NHC to tweak the HDD Acoustic level. These changes unfortunately had no effect at all on the intensity of the noises I'm hearing.

WAV files in ZIP (~ 1 MB)

The sound is only there when there is also hdd activity (led indicator blinking).I hope anyone here can give me some more info about this!

The WAV files probably don't do the sound justice, but the noise is actually very audible even when the laptop is placed on the other side of the room while there's also a desktop pc with audible fans running (so it's not like I need to put my ear on the laptop in order to hear the HDD)

Regards,
Royal


Message Edited by Royal on 09-03-2008 01:52 AM

[dinaki]

Hello Royal

I too am a Dell XPS M1530 owner and I almost wanted to post the same comment as yours.

From my research on line and talking to Dell customer service, there is not a problem with that noise coming from the left side of our system.

I fully understand what you mean, the "ts ts ts" noise that makes when I lift the laptop or move it a little is coming (I guess) from the HD and there's nothing we can do.

A guy from Dell even came to my house for that specific "problem" and he said that it is a normal sound.

That's all I have to say Royal. Besides that, are you enjoying your Dell XPS M1530?

Message Edited by dinaki on 03-10-2009 10:07 PM

Message Edited by dinaki on 03-10-2009 10:08 PM

[graham.k]

Does this update apply to your system?

http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/format.aspx?releaseid=R211337

I have a Dell E6500 with ST9160411ASG drive, but have not yet applied this update, and likely won't bother as my workplace is noisy enough that I'm not likely to hear the noise.

[dinaki]

Thanks a million Graham for replying

Surely that a correct driver update for the XPS M1530, wow!

But I guess I read the instalation process from the page and goood Lord, I have no idea what I was reading, all Chinese for me. I have given up with "this roach" that is in my system, I've been used (several months now) with the "ts ts ts" even though it's driving me nuts.

With that said, I let someone who's a computer guru install the driver.

Again, thank you Graham

[shimsim]

Can anyone from Seagate give a definitive answer on this hard drive clicking problem?

I just received a brand new Dell e6500 with this same clicking sound from the installed ST9250421ASG drive. I found the DE17 firmware update and even after applying it I am still getting the same annoying clicking sound every 5-10 mins.

I posted on the Dell forum and nobody seems to know the exact problem, lots of ideas and suggestions being throw around but nothing that actually solves the problem. So I am hoping that someone from Seagate can shed some light on this problem and even if there is no definitive solution at least explain what is going on because clearly there has been some attempt to address this problem (with the firmware) but it does still exist.

Thanks! 

[shimsim]

Thanks for the flood of replies, i guess its safe to assume this is one of those sweep it under the carpet and hope nobody notices solutions

Anyone from Seagate care enough to comment?

[graham.k]

As the "Welcome" message indicates, Seagate Tech Support staff generally do not read these boards. There are Seagate moderators here, but they don't seem to have a lot of "inside information" to share.

If you need technical support for a retail Seagate product, you can contact Seagate Technical Support.

For an OEM product, such as a drive that came preinstalled in a system, you have to contact the system vendor for support.

Anyway. You don't seriously expect Seagate to post here saying "Yeah, you caught us, our drives are junk"  

FWIW, my work laptop is a Dell E6500 with an ST9160411ASG, and it works fine.

[shimsim]

haha, i never read the small print when i sign up, my bad. so basically these forum are just for end users to bitch about problems and hope that some other end user went through the pain of resolving an issue without the support of seagate and then was kind enough to share it. cool

so far what i know is that this problem is related to the APM, so who can i complain to, is it a dell's bios issue or seagate's firmware issue?