How to remove hard drive noise. Hard drive buzzing what to do
The hard drive remains one of the noisiest components in a computer. Moreover, one should distinguish between noise due to the active operation of the hard drive during reading / writing and motor noise, which comes from the disk almost constantly. Naturally, one should not forget about the vibration noise, which is greatly amplified by the computer case. For example, it is not uncommon for disks rigidly fixed in metal case of the system unit, transmit their low-frequency vibration (100-120 Hz) to it, and as a result, a noticeable unpleasant hum appears, which completely disappears with non-rigid fastening.
Silent mount
the main source of noise in passive mode is the spindle bearing assembly. Being rigidly fixed in the computer case, the hard drive, with its low-frequency oscillations of small amplitude, causes the elements of the case to oscillate. The large surface of the computer case becomes a kind of amplifier for the noise emitted hard drive. It should be noted that three-inch hard drive bays in modern cases are often made in the form of a non-rigidly fixed basket, which is a good oscillatory system. In this case, it is better to completely remove the basket from the case, and install the drive in a 5.25-inch bay in a container or using mounting sleds. Mounting methods to reduce noise hard drive several are offered.
To prevent resonances, you can use elastic washers for the bolts of the disk to the computer case, vibration isolators or an elastic suspension. An interesting idea was suggested on the Internet by enthusiasts from Spode's Adobe website (http://www.spodesabode.com/) a rather original and very cheap way to reduce the noise associated with disk vibration. All you need to implement it is two pencils and a few rubber rings with which you can secure a three-inch HDD in a five-inch drawstring compartment (by the way, this will in a good way for quickly mounting a hard drive in a computer if all three-inch seats are occupied).
Perhaps this is one of the cheapest modifications, but it will force you to look inside your computer from time to time and change the rubber bands, as they become unusable over time. However, you can use wider and more reliable harnesses. However, do not forget that an insecurely fixed hard drive can slow down the performance of the system or even fail.
In addition, some hard drives get very hot during operation, so good thermal contact with the computer case is an indispensable condition for their reliable operation, and suspension or insulation from the case disrupts heat transfer. So although the most modern models have significantly reduced power consumption, the risk of overheating with difficult heat dissipation still remains.
For such hard drives, you can use devices such as Mobile Rack (http://www.mobile-rack.ru/), which is a plastic container into which a hard drive is inserted on a sled. The container will also perform the role of a vibration isolator dampen some of the vibrations of the hard drive. Some cases have built-in fans for better heat dissipation.
A more radical method of reducing the noise of a hard drive is the use of special soundproof containers such as Silent Drive (http://www.quietps.com/) with a heat-removing circuit.
How to make a hard drive quieter using software
Many manufacturers provide for their products the ability to programmatically reduce the speed of head positioning. The owner of the hard drive can reduce the noise level with the help of special utilities, which should be searched on the website of a particular manufacturer. Naturally, the speed of access to data after reducing the noise may decrease somewhat, but the level of comfort when working with a personal computer will increase.
The fact is that many modern hard disks have a noise control function (Automatic Acoustic Management, AAM, which in Russian means noise control), and therefore some hard drive manufacturers have developed utilities for managing various parameters drives, including AMM. Almost any modern hard drive that complies with the ATA/ATAPI-6 standard or higher supports this function. The only exceptions are thin, cheap Maxtor drives and many modern Seagate drives that have AAM support but cannot be adjusted.
How does the hard drive regulate the noise it makes? Some people believe that noise reduction is achieved by reducing the speed of rotation of the disk, but this is not true, since the speed of rotation of the spindle is a constant value for specific model maintained to the nearest fraction of a percent. But the speed of movement of the drive of the block of magnetic heads (BMG) can be controlled. If you dismantled a modern hard drive, you would see that the HMG is driven by a coil located in the field of action of a strong permanent magnet. When a current is passed through the coil in one direction, the block begins to move in one direction, and when the sign of the current changes, in the other. This whole design strongly resembles the design of a conventional acoustic speaker, which is why this coil is called acoustic. The greater the amplitude of the current pulse passed through the coil, and the steeper its front, the greater the acceleration given to the block of magnetic heads, and, accordingly, the stronger the noise emitted by the BMG design, because it acts as a diffuser in this "dynamics". The essence of the noise reduction method in this case is reduced to smoothing the fronts of the current pulse supplied to the coil, which, in addition to reducing noise, leads to a decrease in the acceleration of the movement of the head unit. And this means that the operation of searching for a specific location on the disk will be slower.
According to the ATA / ATAPI specification, regulation can be carried out in 126 discrete levels (values in hex 0x80-0xFE), but in practice only two levels of regulation are often supported AAM ON (noise reduction enabled hex values 0x80-0xA0) and AAM OFF (respectively, maximum performance hex values 0xA1-0xFE). The principle of operation of utilities that control the noise level of hard drives is to change the contents of the special Acoustic Management register.
As a rule, this function does not provide for a smooth decrease in speed, but only switches modes from "fast" to "quiet", but expansion of its capabilities is planned in future implementations. Moreover, the noise level of the disk can be changed at any time without losing the integrity of the disk, that is, without destroying the information available on it.
On hard drives different manufacturers the factory setting may be different and vary from batch to batch. For example, some Samsung models are produced either with AAM enabled or disabled (that is, in maximum performance mode).
In order to adjust the noise level on your hard drive, you need, as we have already mentioned, to use a special utility from the drive manufacturer. If you don’t find such a program on the manufacturer’s website, then you can use one of the many free utilities for disk management. For example, there are special program AAMTOOL by Mikhail Mavritsin and universal MHDD by Dmitry Postrigan. Programs can be taken from our CD. The possibilities of MHDD can be found on the website (http://mhddsoftware.com/index.ru.php). AAM is easy to adjust run MHDD from a floppy and in command line programs to dial AAM. The hard drive will begin to crack its heads, and the program will offer you a choice of several options: M (minimum noise level), L (medium), P (maximum), and the D key turns off Automatic Acoustic Management, thereby putting the hard drive into maximum performance mode.
Switching the hard drive to low noise mode, although it leads to a decrease in performance by an average of 5-10% (in some search tasks, the decrease can be up to 30%), but the hard drive in this mode is almost inaudible even when copying a large number small files.
However, in consumer devices, the speed characteristics of the drive are less important than the noise it produces, with modern technologies, the performance of hard drives is more than enough, and the acoustic background created by the drive in the system is of particular importance for the user. Realizing this, many hard drive companies are investing heavily in Scientific research and the development of quieter drives and improvements in system design to minimize their specific noise.
However, do not forget that even such simple generic methods, like regular disk defragmentation, timely archiving, garbage removal and keeping your data in order, also reduce the noise level of the hard drive when searching for information.
And one more thing: get devices for your computers uninterruptible power supply and cases with high-quality power supplies unstable voltage (not to mention the overvoltage of cheap power supplies) can also lead to drive failures and not only increase their noise, but also damage them.
Modern drives are making less and less noise.
Drive manufacturers do not stand still, and when designing new models, they apply more and more new noise reduction technologies, including the use of shock-absorbing materials inside and outside the drive.
In principle, now for most hard drives, a noise level of about 30-35 dB is considered acceptable (noise increases when the hard drive heads are actively moving).
The rotation speed of a disk pack in a modern hard drive is 5400, 7200, 10,000 or 15,000 rpm (rpm). And the higher the speed of disk rotation, the greater the speed of access to information recorded on the hard drive. True, the most common hard drives at present have a speed of 5400-7200 rpm, since this is cheaper, simpler and more reliable. It affects the fact that there is air at atmospheric pressure inside the hard drive case, therefore, if the disk rotation speed is too high, the rotating parts heat up significantly, and this leads to problems in the reliability of structural elements. In addition, high-speed hard drives create a significant level of noise during operation, which does not contribute to comfortable working with a computer. For example, the noise level when reading data in random order is so high that the operation of a hard drive sometimes resembles the roar of a tractor. For slower hard drives, the noise level can be significantly lower, but now that hard drives are equipped with Appliances(digital audio and video recorders, satellite receivers, Internet set-top boxes, etc.), the requirements for their noise level are noticeably tougher.
Indeed, in the field of consumer electronics, there are practically no devices containing fans, and hard drives become the only source of noise in them. Moreover, the requirements for the silence of the operation of household devices are much more stringent than for desktop computers, and low noise levels are often associated with high quality product.
That's why hard drive manufacturers today aim to achieve 15-20dB noise levels (quiet room background level at night) in passive mode and 2-3dB higher in read/write mode. Of course, such a level would satisfy even the most demanding user, but today there are practically no such drives, and noise reduction from existing drives has to be achieved by additional means.
The easiest solution to get rid of motor noise is to get a hard drive with a speed of 5400 rpm. Such a disk drive, when idling, has a noise level of 28-30 dB and will not be heard during the day (at this time background noise quiet room is at 30 dB), especially if it is enclosed in a well-insulated system enclosure that also muffles sounds. However, in the data search mode, the noise increases by 4-6 dB or more, which cannot remain invisible to the user. And for consumer electronics (for example, for the same digital video recorders), such a noise level is generally unacceptable.
Therefore, the noise level of hard drives is steadily decreasing. Spindle now good disk It is almost silent, and makes a characteristic sound only when starting or stopping. In addition, a characteristic crackle is emitted by the head positioning mechanism, which is especially noticeable when copying many small files scattered across the disk (to reduce noise when positioning heads, regular disk defragmentation can be recommended). However, in some models, the head positioning time is deliberately increased by the developers in order to reduce the noise level when reading/writing small or highly fragmented files.
Thus, the use of disks of the latest generations provides a more radical reduction in noise than all the methods described above, including when the positioning mechanism is intensively working.
Modern drives use noise-insulating gaskets, SeaShield protective covers, fluid dynamic bearings (Fluid Dynamics Bearing, FDB), as well as couplers between the body and the engine, special materials and designs are selected that allow you to achieve 20 dB at idle and up to 28 dB when silently searching for data.
Thus, acoustics (that is, the noise that the drive produces during operation) becomes one of the most important parameters of modern hard drives.
While working at the computer, many users have noticed noise. It can be created by both a cooler, a video card, and a hard drive. However, the noise from the hard drive is different from other sounds that come from the system unit or the bottom of the laptop. The noise of the hard drive is more like crackling. It appears when you copy large files or play a game. If your PC was previously stable and extraneous noise was not observed, and now the hard disk is cracking, it is worth copying the entire important information and check.
Get rid of hard drive crash
If your hard drive is cracking, fix this problem can be done in two ways:
- Reduced head positioning speed (since they crack);
- Reliable fixation of the hard drive inside the system unit.
Each hard drive has an option such as Automatic Acoustic Management. It is responsible for the speed of rotation of the magnetic heads of the hard drive. It is impossible to change its parameters and reduce the data reading speed with the usual settings. Requires a special program. You can find many of these on the Internet. QuietHDD software is popular. However, it is worth warning that by reducing the speed of rotation of the heads, the speed of reading information decreases. The disk starts to slow down. This is a negative factor. Here you have to choose: speed or working hard drive.
We remove the crackle of the hard drive using quietHDD in the following way. Download and run the utility as Administrator.
Open the "AAM Settings" tab. We move the sliders to the minimum position, reduce from 256 to 128 revolutions. Then click "Accept" and "OK".
In order not to run this utility every time before starting to use programs and applications, it is worth adding it to the system startup.
If you are the owner of a PC, not a laptop, the hard drive must be securely fixed in system unit. You can do this in three ways:
- Bolt fastening. Often, the hard drive is attached with just two bolts, although there are more connectors. In the "sled" the disk "feels" freely and because of this creates a crackle and noise. It is worth stretching the device and securely fasten the hard drive to all the bolts.
- Use of pads. Soft rubberized pads dampen noise and vibration. You can buy them or cut them yourself and install them at the point of contact between the disk and the system unit. However, the material should not be too large so as not to interfere with the ventilation of the disc.
- Mounting with twisted pair. Usually, 3-4 small pieces of wire are used for this purpose and fastened as if the disk were located in the sled. However, in this case, it will be difficult to move the body. There is a risk of damaging the device.
Using the above methods, you can fix the hard drive so that it does not make noise or crack.
HDD, aka hard drive - makes noise, clicks and creaks. Why and what can be done.
Most HDD noise has sound waves in the range of 1 - 3 kHz consists of noise from two different sources.
This is the noise of a hard drive generated by the rotation of its spindle and the friction of mechanical parts directly inside the hard drive. This noise can only be reduced by modifying the components of the hard drive.
Most of all, we hear noise caused by the vibration of the hard drive inside the computer case. This, in turn, consists of vibration from the rotation of the spindle, as well as vibration from the read / write heads, which accelerate and decelerate many times per second.
Clicks in the HDD, for example, are emitted by the positioner, at the moment of impact on the limiter. A working hard drive may make clicks due to the so-called thermal calibration, when the hard drive, in response to an increase in the temperature of the case and components, reinitializes the read / write head positioning system.
In addition, the hard drive also clicks from a bad, "rattling" or unstable power supply, when the heads go into the parking area and the HDD electronics restarts. Another reason why a working screw clicks may be putting the hard drive into sleep mode, and if such settings are explicitly specified in the system's power saving properties, then a similar effect can occur quite often. It makes sense to mention the offline scanning of the disk surface as one of the reasons why the HDD clicks. True, in this case, extraneous sounds from the hard drive will be due to bad sectors (bad blocks) of the hard drive, which off-line scanning tries to replace or exclude from the broadcast.
What to do?
Simply put, there are two ways to reduce the volume of sounds emitted by a hard drive - fix them in the case using soft fasteners that prevent the transfer of vibration from the hard drive to the case and use the Automatic Acoustic Management function.
"Squeak" - is it the rattling of the screw during operation or a constant hum? If the latter, then most likely a resonance. Tighten or tighten the hard drive mount. What if there are two? The screws one by one work silently, and together in the same case - the hum is worth it. We advise you to turn one of the screws upside down so that the rotation is in different directions. Turned over. The sound has decreased by 80%. It means it.
Not everyone knows that the user can change the characteristics of the hard drive using the acoustic control function, which allows you to modify data access profiles (access patterns) and change the default hard drive mode (fast) to quiet mode.
Run a utility like HD Tune Pro, enable AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) and put it in silent mode.
Download the Victoria program and use it to adjust the noise level of the hard drive (the noise is reduced by reducing the spindle speed).
Everyone has hard drives, based on UltraATA/100 and Serial ATA interfaces, there is an automatic acoustic control (AAM) function, but you need special software tools to access it and be able to change its settings.
Sounds with a frequency of 1 kHz to 3 kHz are characterized by the greatest susceptibility, so noise reduction at these frequencies is more effective than at other frequencies. This is where acoustic control technology comes from.
Most of the sound waves in the range from 1 to 3 kHz consist of noise from two different sources. Firstly, this is the noise of the hard drive, generated by the rotation of its spindle and the friction of the mechanical parts directly inside the hard drive. This noise can only be reduced by modifying the components of the hard drive. But most of all we hear the noise caused by the vibration of the hard drive inside the computer case. This, in turn, consists of vibration from the rotation of the spindle, as well as vibration from the read / write heads, which accelerate and decelerate many times per second.
Most fast way The movement of the heads consists in their acceleration to the middle of the path towards the new track and their subsequent deceleration on the remaining part of the path (the so-called two-position search). There are many options for modifying this operation, ranging from the modification of acceleration and deceleration, as well as the required switching power supply. Adding Native Command Queuing here, which analyzes and reorders all incoming commands to find the most efficient order of read and write requests, helps reduce the amount of head movement, which can reduce access time and noise.
Now let's move on to analyzing the situation when the hard drive knocks due to a malfunction. As a rule, in this case, the positioning system, for one reason or another, is not able to receive signals from the hard disk heads, indicating that the head "sees" the servo markup. In this case, the hard drive creaks, whistles, knocks or makes other soul-exciting sounds. The actuator moves the block of heads across the entire available amplitude, hence the entire set. The HDD knocks even if there was a failure during the firmware loading process and it hung, preventing the processor from controlling the giblets of the screw. In all cases, when a hard drive knocks, qualified diagnostics are needed to determine the causes and develop an action strategy for successful data recovery from a knocking hard drive.
Winchester creaks or HDD makes noise.
Read in the article examples of sounds of a failed hard drive and how to identify them. Clicking or rustling sounds, vibration or whistling that were not there before. A working hard drive is a fairly quiet device that can only be reminded of itself by a soft click while accessing it or turning on / off the computer. But if over time, clicking or rustling sounds come from the hard drive, as well as vibration or whistle that was not heard before, then such a hard drive may have failed.
western digital
Muffled sound of faulty hard disk heads.
Failed disk heads slowly click several times, after which the rotation of the disk slows down.
Slowdown of the rotation of the hard disk platters after the production of several clicking sounds by the failed heads.
A hard drive with a stuck spindle cannot spin up.
Clicking sounds from a hard drive with a failed preamp chip.
A disc with unstable heads that stops after a few clicks.
A laptop hard drive with a stuck spindle that is trying to spin up, making a siren-like sound.
A computer hard drive cannot spin up due to bad bearings.
Seagate
Rustling and clicking sounds that a disk with inoperable heads makes.
Sounds that a disk with damaged heads makes during startup (platform spin-up).
Clicking faulty laptop hard drive heads.
A disc with a stuck spindle is trying to spin up.
The boring sound of broken disk heads.
Maxtor
A computer hard drive with a non-working or broken head unit.
Clicks of inoperable heads.
The sound that a disc with a jammed spindle makes.
Samsung
A fast clicking sound indicates the failure of the hard drive heads.
The same as with the previous disc.
The sound of damaged hard disk heads.
A worn out computer disk that makes a scratching sound when accessing bad sectors.
Hitachi/IBM
The hard drive of a laptop with damaged heads clicks on startup, after which it beeps.
A worn out computer disk that makes a scratching sound when accessing an area with bad sectors.
A disc with worn platters and a head unit makes wheezing and howling sounds.
The whirring sound of a laptop drive with a stuck spindle trying to spin up.
Toshiba
The sound of failed laptop hard drive bearings.
The sound of worn laptop hard drive bearings.
The sound of wedged bearings on a laptop hard drive.
Fujitsu
Worn laptop hard drive heads.
Faulty laptop hard drive heads.
The sound of worn out plates of a computer hard drive.
Quantum
Faulty head unit.
What to do if the hard drive starts making extraneous sounds
- First of all, make sure that the hard drive is the source of the emitted sound.
- After you make sure that it is the hard drive that is making the sounds that bother you, run a diagnostic hard disk. You can use both those supplied by manufacturers with the device, and from third-party manufacturers. Just keep in mind that at best, the diagnostic utility will detect and limit the use of broken hard disk, which may cause the disk to malfunction or become unstable. If there are mechanical damage or wear of the hard drive - it is impossible to fix them programmatically.
- If nothing has changed in the operation of the disk after using the diagnostic software, it is recommended that you immediately create a copy of the data of such a hard disk or its image for further recovery.
How to create an image of a failed or damaged disk using Hetman Partition Recovery. - If, as a result of using a diagnostic or repair software the sounds of the hard drive have partially or completely disappeared, it is possible that there are bad sectors. In this case, it is still recommended to create a backup of all data hard disk and think about replacing it, since bad sectors may continue to appear on the disk and this will eventually lead to data loss or failure.
Other Sounds Your Computer Can Make
The hard drive is not the only device in the computer that is capable of making sound. It can also be a power supply, cooler, CD / DVD drive, or other devices connected to it. SSD drives don't make any sound because they don't have moving parts. Therefore, before taking any action, it is important to correctly identify the source of the sound.
If the computer is performing some complex tasks or running a resource-intensive game, it will be normal if the computer starts to work louder - the computer coolers will spin faster to cool it down. Sometimes, a dirty or broken cooler makes more noise than other devices.
It is also normal for the CD/DVD drive to make noise while reading or copying data from it.
If it was not noisy before, but now it is noisy - this is not normal. A properly working drive may emit a slight uniform noise/whistling and frequent, not too loud clicks during reading/writing (such a slight uneven rattling, these are magnetic heads moving).
If the disk rattles, vibrates - this is very bad. He most likely won't last long. Theoretically, the reason could be that it is loose (and then it rattles along with your drive bay, the walls of which (bay) are not strong enough to hold the drive while it is running). I have seen such mention. But it's hard for me to imagine how fragile, "cardboard" the walls of the mounts must be for this to happen. Except for the case when you installed a 3-inch hard drive in a 5-inch bay in a makeshift way (for this, a special adapter mount must be used, such a 3-inch bay inserted inside a 5-inch one). In this case, rattling is just likely.
If it's not the mount, then (aside from all the super-exotic once-in-a-million options) the drive is faulty. If it's under warranty, change it. If it is clearly rattling (not humming evenly, but rattling), this is a malfunction, so they must be changed. If the disc is out of warranty, then you can no longer rely on it. Do backup all important data and get ready for the fact that he could die at any moment. When my hard drive began to make suspicious noise, I immediately bought a new one, copied all the important information to it, and old disk I put it in the closet (in case I forgot to rewrite some important information).
You can also check the status ("health") of the disk (this information is collected by the disk itself during operation, the technology is called S.M.A.R.T. or SMART). It contains information about the number of different errors during the operation of the disk (a small number of errors is perfectly normal). To display this information, most likely, you will need a special program. Convenient program I can't tell you (if you know English, you can search for hdd health check). However, caution should be exercised. If the disk is out of order, a long active work disk during an in-depth check (not just showing the statistics collected by SMART, but testing the disk operation) can be the drop that will lead to a sharp deterioration in the state of the disk.
If the disc is just making a little noise, then it's noise from the drive (motor) (or maybe the bearings). Given that the disc is spinning at under 10,000 rpm, it's to be expected that it's a bit noisy.
I have an old computer at work. Today I heard some kind of vibration several times. Toist something rattled in the system unit. Since the system is open, I looked there, listened, it really buzzed something, it looks like a vibration, it buzzes a couple of times and then it works. I can’t figure out what it is buzzing, but I have Word turned on and during its operation the cooler buzzes very strongly, the sound is as if it sounds like a ringing. And in the morning, after turning on the computer and loading it, for some reason we rebooted it ourselves. Moreover, I did not include anything on it. What could it be, I would like to know. Everything that I type on the computer in Word I save to a USB flash drive. But this is after the end of the working day. But now I'll probably save everything on a flash drive after the hard drive vibrates. Since my work computer is likely to break soon.
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