Samsung HM250JI Harddrive in Dell 1330

I am trying to resolve this issue once and for all. There have been quite a few threads about this drive making a loud "clunk" sound intermittently every 45-60 minutes or so (sometimes much more frequently, sometimes less frequently). There has been a lot of mention that it might be normal for this drive (heads parking or something like that).

Here are the threads regarding the issue:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=198016
http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php/t-198016.html
http://www.akngo.com/blog/samsung-hm320ij-320gb-clicking/#comment-26
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=143858
http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php/t-168425.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php/t-193601.html
newegg comments on this drive also discuss the noise

I have run many HDD tests BIOS and Dell diagnostics to include SMART and there have never been any errors reported. When the clunk sound happens there is no decrease in performance or error reported in system reports. The drive works perfectly.

I have tried performance mode in BIOS, and that didn't solve it. I tried NHC, but it seemed to mess up so many other things on my system that I uninstalled it rather quickly so I don't know if it might have worked. Regardless, if this is normal then the noise doesn't bother me and I wouldn't need NHC anyway.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue, how to fix it, and if it's normal? Dell's answer is simply to send a new drive. But I've read about too many people getting the same drive and having the same issue (seems pretty consistent with this drive). Anybody actually contacted Samsung about it?

I'm hoping someone can tell me if it's normal or not and either way, if there's something that can be done to stop it.

Thanks,
Tom

 

im having the same issue with my HM320JI 320GB samsung hdd too. no way to stop it, and like you, i've tried it all. nothing works. im hoping samsung will release firmwares to fix this stupid clunking issue. everytime that happens my heart just sank right down the ocean.

 

You've been having this since July 2007? If so, I'd guess if it hasn't failed by now with the clunk, it's probably not going to anytime soon and the clunk shouldn't be too much of a concern. Agree?

 

i've been having this issue since january 08. drive is still performing remarkably well despite the occasional annoying clicks and clunks. it would have been perfect if it wasnt for those clunks, because this is the fastest HDD i've ever used on a laptop, on par with any 7200RPM out there.

the thing is, im taking a guess that every 250-320GB hdd rolled out from samsung has this issue, and so far, no words from samsung about this. from my years of computing experience, loud mechanical noise from hdd is not a good news, so until samsung released a firmware to address this issue, i would not take any chances, because we could be wrong to assume the drive is running just fine.

another thing is that, if you do a search on the internet, not many users have reported having this issue. i could only assume that there arent many samsung 320GB or 250GB users out there, because if they are, im sure the whole world would be discussing it (seeing how little annoying headphone jack noise and cpu whine creates sooo much anger and frustration among the community here)

 

I have a HM160JI drive and I never hear anything from it nor my Hitachi primary.

 

Hi,
I have a Samsung 120GB HM12HII with the same problem. I find it actually pretty stressful!

Please take a minute to get Dell to do something about this.
==> http://www.ideastorm.com/article/sh...t_the_click_click_noise_of_laptop_hard_drives

It is Dell's responsibility to cooperate with Samsung and offer us a solution ASAP.
Moreover, as you may have noticed on other threads here about this issue, other user have the problem with non-Samsung hard drives (eg: Seagate, WD...).
Hope we get a solution soon.

Regards,
C.

 

i think the non samsung hard drives are just making the usual seek/write soft clicking noise. the LOUD "clunk" noise we samsung hdd owners occasionally hear is totally different from what seagate, WD or fujitsu hdd owners are hearing. correct me if im wrong.

 

I've heard the same. On the Samsung we're talking a loud metallic noise that will make your neighbor turn his head.

 

I have that metallic noise.
But reading this thread I had understood that other users have the same noise on their HDD.
Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Cestuila,

It's a different issue, or sound, with the Samsung. It's a really loud clunk that is intermittent and doesn't seem to have any connection to HD use. It's not a constant clicking as many described in the thread you linked to. The first entry in this thread describes it well:

http://www.akngo.com/blog/samsung-hm320ij-320gb-clicking/#comment-26

Thanks,
Tom

 

Has anybody actually had a Samsung 250 or 320 GB HD on a 1330 with the clunk noise actually had the HD fail?

I haven't seen a single person report a failure or even an error due to the clunk yet.

Tom

 

the thing is that the annoying "clunks" does not affect performance at all. i have no freaking idea what the heck is the hard drive doing, and im pretty sure it's not as simple as parking the head. it clunks even during read! why would the drive park the head during read?

 

Moreover, if it was truly "parking" it wouldn't continue to read. As you said, there's no drop in performance!

Wish I knew...just happened for the second time today.

 

u are lucky. when i first got it, i hardly hear it in a day. then it progressed to 30-45min once. nowadays, it randomly happens in 15min or 15sec once between intervals. really sick of the clunks.

 

Thanks for the description... but I didn't need it, as I hear this noise pretty often myself.
Don't know if it's Samsung's fault or not, but I bought my computer from Dell, not from Samsung. I expect Dell to offer us a solution.
Furthermore, it seems that we are having the problem on distinct Samsung HDDs (mine is 120GB).
I still believe the sound is similar to the one people refer to in this thread, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

I know a lot of us have tried this with varying success. But I am still curious if anyone has actually had one of these Samsung HD's crash with the clunk issue. Anyone?

 

I will be making a recording of the clunk/click sound my laptop makes .. it seems to be doing it about every minute and IT IS DRIVING ME INSANE.


If dell does not fix this problem they will have a returned m1530 on their hands. I suggest all of you increase the severity of this problem up to my current level of "unacceptable".

I work and play in a quite environment usually ... MY HARD DRIVE CLICK CLACKS LIKE A GRANDFATHER CLOCK

 

Arrrrg .........Looks like Dell users these days have hell lot of problem with SAMSUNG. First the screen and now this

 

I have this same problem, been thinking about it constantly!! Basically, there is a hitch that causes the drive to EMERGENCY PARK the heads. This type of parking has a different reliability rating than regular park/unpark operations. Maximum emergency unload specs I've seen are around 20,000 - 50,000 times, because it's not controlled parking, similar to power cutting nearly any 2.5" mobile drive that has it's heads on the platter at the time of the power cut. This is why it's a reliability concern for me. I believe Samsung has a great drive here, it is the quietest, coolest, quickest 5400 drive I've ever used. I beleive the latch mechanism is also above average, but high wear emergency parks are never good for it.

I've tried all the APM settings, even at 254 (which should imply "leave heads on inner platter when idle"), clunk still comes, albeit it was softer on 254, whereas clunk intensity has always varied more or less on other settings. That tells me that its not triggered by normal park/unpark operations, because on 254, thats disabled. It must be some request or hitch from the bus that causes the drive to do this.

THEN I tried disabling the SMART monitoring, since it doesnt pick up temperature and my log was still blank. My rationale is perhaps the incessant querying of the drive causes a logic reset, or some kind of bug induced epileptic siezure. So far so good, no clunk yet!

PS - does anyone's Samsung HMXXXJI make the clunk noise and it's NOT connected to an Intel bus?? Also anyone experience this on PATA/IDE bus , or is it only on SATA busses??

 

i installed my HM320JI to an external case and connect it to my laptop using eSATA express card. the clunks are still there. i dont think there are any SMART monitoring going on through eSATA.

 

since I started this thread, thought I'd add one final comment.

I'm done with the HM250JI. I share the reliability concerns from the emergency parking. I just received a new Fujitsu HD from Dell today.

Hope his one is better.

 

My HM320JI is silent, in fact much quieter than its 320GB Toshiba counterpart

EDIT: for clarity, no clinks at all.

 

i have both, and i must say, apart from the annoying "clunks", HM320JI is much better in almost all aspects. much quiter, and most importantly, much faster than toshiba. but i just cannot accept the clunk noise.

nFKt, what is the firmware of your drive? and when did u receive your drive?

 

My new HD arrived Friday and is installed. It's a Fujitsu, and was manufactured in February, so it's their latest 5400 250 HD

 

how's the performance? any benchmarks like WEI?

 

My 2 first M1530 had the Samsung 250Gb and were clunking away. I don't know what's causing this but it sure was for no apparent reason as the laptops where on a desk not moving...

My current M1530 has a Seagate and there's no Clunk. I made sure to order the 200Gb so I would most likely get the Seagate because I didn't want another clunky Samsung...

WEI is not a performance benchmark, it's a marketing benchmark...

 

Well apparently the clunk affacts the Load/Unload Cycle count in the SMART info, the value increases per clunk. Not sure WHAT this SMART value means, because there is already another value for normal load/unload cycles called "Load Cycle Count". After googling for a while, it apprears "Load/Unload Cycle Count" means specific things to specific manufacturers. In fact as I'm typing this post, the drive had clunked 3 times (under a 2minutes) and I'm watching the mysterious Load/Unload Cycle Count increase.. it's like it knows I'm talking about it! EDIT: as I'm typing this post, the clunk has really flared up!!! WTF? thats creepy, I spend hours on this machine a day and it runs 24/7 mostly and It's never clunked this much in such a short time... WEIRD!!!

so to recap

Load Cycle Count = normal head park.unparks current value of 227060 over here
Load/Unload Cycle Count = the CLUNK. current value 9789 (EDIT: 9794 at time of posting) over here..

POH = 3150 or 131 days
All data read, track, relocated sectors, uncorrectable errors are still 0, which supports good drive condition.

 

Good work. I ditched the samsung this weekend for fear that the clunk (or as you've now identified he number of load/unload cycles) would prematurely wear down the hard drive, or worse, cause a crash. Last week I started to notice slow speed, random file seek errors and general low performance. Might want to watch for those if the clunk continues.

 

I wish I could swap my drive, Tom.... problem is I'd have to spring for a new drive which I cant right now, and a warranty replacement from Samsung will more than likely do the same thing. I have stuff backed up on the network, but it would still be a royal PITA to rebuild my main drive! arg Today is by far the worst I've ever heard it... It wont stop..... I'm up to 9823 now!

BTW _ hows your new Fujitsu treating you? Other than the clunk problem, are there any differences?

 

None that I've identified yet. It was built by Fujitsu in Feb 2008, so should have all the lastest firmware on it. I don't know a lot about Fujitsu, but do know a lot of Viaos have them, so I assume they're fine.

Have you thought about creating a complete disk image of your HD w/ ACronis 11 so that if it does die you'll be back up and running very quickly with a new harddrive?

 

oh no doubt... but i use the stripped down free version of it, with WD logos

samsung HM guys:
*major developments happening here.. how would you like to get rid of the tourettes click AND increase the drives speed? more than likely have the problem identified and a solution. it involves hutil.. need a longer runtime to be sure though !!

 

whelp, the drive now still does the Load/Unload Cycling, but it sounds like a normal drive! just slightly audible as a little clink, and only as frequent as the loud click was. Also random seek time (as measured by HDTACH) has dropped 1.1ms, from 18.2ms (AAM-LOUD) to 17.1ms. (AAM-DISABLED) I thought, like many people that the AAM setting of loud (254) was the fastest mode. Not true, if you load up HUTIL and DISABLE AAM altogether yeilds the 17.1ms random seek as reported by HDTACH. For some reason my BURST speed has also gone up about 17-20MB/sec. If anyone runs an AAM modifying utility (such as NHC) after setting DISABLED in HUTIL, it will turn AAM back on again and your seek time will increase and your drive will clunk until AAM is disabled again. Also the QUIET AAM setting as far as I've heard, has no clunk either, and even less Load/Unload Cycles but random seek times absolutely suck at 22.5ms. good luck YMMV

 

I had this problem with Samsung HM320JI, only mine is worse, it beeped twice in two weeks in addition to clicking periodically. Dell send a replacement HD (Toshiba mk3252gsx). Kudos to Dell, fixing the screw ups of Samsung.

 

I have the samsung HM250JI in dell 1520 and it does exactly as you describe. In some ways I wish I kept the westen digital in my original 1520, but that was so noisy when seeking (continuous grinding sound) that I decided to return it as I thought it was possible faulty, sometimes it got louder than others.

My new 1520 came with this samsung which is very quiet most of the time but which has this load cycle/unload problem. It clicks 2 or 3 times in about 30 second intervals every 10 minutes to 1 hour depending on ??? What that is I have no idea!

Worse still mine has started beeping, and by that I mean it actually sounds like a PC speaker beep. But it is the shrill sound of the hard drive doing something. It is the hard drive (the noise is followed by a softer clunk) and it will do it 2 or 3 times a week when doing light work like web surfing or not using it and also now does it about 2 out of 3 times as the computer shuts down. Quite a loud noise too.

Has anyone else encountered the beep? I'm using HDD life on full performance mode with power management off and all seems quiet so far... Will let you know if this solves it.

 

Download the dos utility from samsung website and change AAM mode to quiet. Did this today and since then I have not heard the drive park once.

Can I ask. What are peoples smart results? My g sense error rate keeps falling. Its now at 40 and just 3 days ago it was 62 (I guess this is % healthy as most other values are 100). Its fallen gradually and changing it to quiet has not made any difference, continues to fall.

 

HDD life does not fix problem. But the samsung dos utility seems to. The FAST accoustic management mode seems to be culrpit. I've heard disabling or switching to quiet mode can fix problem but you cannot do this through windows, only dos. Need to download CD image version. Burn image to CD using software and boot from it.

 

Quiet mode did not work either. I still heard it beep. And click too. However I've now totally DISABLED accoustic management altogether using samsung utility from www.samsunghdd.com
First thoughts are how fast everything loads. No clicks, no beeps yet (touch wood), and my computer is so much more responsive. In HDTUNE my access time has dropped from 21 to 17ms. That doesn't sound like much but it certainly seems to make a diifference. And being a quiet drive there isn't hardly any increase in noise.
I was seriously thinking of swapping the hard drive or upgrading to a larger or faster one but I've read reviews and this samsung is the quickest drive there is at 5400RPM. Only seagates momentus and hitachi's 7200 RPM drives are faster.

However the G sense error rate in SMART continues to fall. I think damage is already done sadly. The drive parking so often and screeching to a halt with a loud beep may have damaged it. With accoustic management off it doesn't seem to want to park itself or re-calibrate itself. The things completely silent yet its faster. The manufacturers default (fast AAM) is not AAM off.

 

Update - Quiet doesn't work! But disabling AAM altogether seems to.

 

i've disabled AAM like you suggested and so far in the last 10min, there have been 3-5 clunks. i dont think it works. and in order to make sure your settings using samsung ESTOOL sticks, you have to set your dell BIOS HDD performance to "bypass" setting, otherwise whatever changes you make in ESTOOL will be reset to whatever settings that is in dell BIOS when you reboot.

 

Most clicks are quiet since AAM disabled and not frequent but just when I thought I'd cured it I got a loud click. But one in 2 days ain't bad.

Don't like my smart values though!! G sense error rate gets worse and worse every day.

HD Tune: SAMSUNG HM250JI Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 100 51 40 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 252 252 25 2687 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 2656 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 10 6 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 252 252 0 465 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 278 Ok
(BF) G-sense Error Rate 27 27 0 740432 Ok
(C0) Power Off Retract Count 100 100 0 84 Ok
(C2) Temperature 127 97 0 655397 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 100 100 0 27078 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 100 100 0 807 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 100 0 3027 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 252 252 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 252 252 0 0 Ok

Power On Time : 465
Health Status : Ok

 

Nothing I can do will stop the beeps/clicks. Can make them less frequent but major ones will still occur daily and the drive looks like its gonna die. That beeps viscious! Ear pearcing shreek.
G sense error continues to get rapidly worse and worse.
Accoustic management does not solve the problem at all. Makes clicks/beeps less often but when they happen every bit as bad.

 

any idea what is the threshold of G-sense value before drive failure? mine is currently 63460. not sure if that is high or low but is certainly low compared to yours

 

Ouch, a very loud beep with AAM disabled (its louder if the laptops on a hard surface!) High pitch shrill sound. And now Gsense error has jumped to over 800,000 and the value is 20 (it was 100 at one point). Only got 20% left to give and then its likely to die. The number of realocated sectors has gone up from 6 to 8

SMART VALUES (raw values
Raw read error rate - was 40, now 20 (improved! Odd)
Reallocated sector count - was 6, now 8 (worse)
G sense error - was 740432, now 809999 (worse)
Reallocated event count - was 27078, now 27433 (worse)
Current pending sector - was 807, now 811 (worse)
Offline uncorrectable was 3027, now 3072

 

I joined this Forum so I could chime in on the Samsung HD issue. I have a 2 week new 1721 making the clunking noise. I tried the NHC bug fix, no luck. Uninstalled and went into Bios and set performance mode to disable Quiet setting and max performance. Since rebooting from Bios I have not heard the clunking noise in about 4 hours of operation. Will keep you all posted on progress.

Unclemic

 

Okay update, I still get the clunking but sometimes it is softer.

 

Disabling accoustic management seems to significantly reduce the number of clicks. I now get about 2 noticable clicks and 2 beeps/day and thats on a weekend when PC is on a lot longer.

Can live with the clicks. The high pitched shrill beep that is emitted from the drive followed by a few quiet clicks is less welcome.

Even worse is the fact that my G sense error rate continues to fall. Its now just 13/100. According to activesmart monitor, if it continues this trend the drive will fail in 3 days.

However I'm still not sure what G sense error rate is and what happens if this value drops below threshold of 0. Will it fail to work or will it just get slower and slower and develop errors. Other values suggest errors have occurred but not that many and with reallocation built into the drive I have not had any hard drive related crashes or slow downs.

 

Update - it hasn't failed yet so active smarts predictions was wrong. G sense went down to 9 and 10 days later its still at 9 and there has been no beeps or loud clicks. Raw read error rate is improving.

 

The hard drive seems to be fine until the computers been on for a few hours and then it will start to fail. Even with the fans on full (I have a utility to change them),. First it will click a bit, and then I get a warning from Active smart saying my g sense error rate has got worse.
Doesn't run hot, my drive temperatire is only 34 degrees as I type this. It might be some kind of offline sector correction process that starts running. There's plenty of offline uncorrected sectors (3600 of them) that need to be repaired! A bit of my drive must be faulty but run Hutil/es from samsung and I get a clean bill of health. No errors.
I think it could fail and another post states that after this kind of thing their 320GB samsung eventually died.

 

g-sense error corresponds to the drives physical movement. If i tap the the laptop over the drive and refresh my SMART info, the G-sense error climbs. I suppose this info is used internally by Samsung to evaluate on average how roughly the drive has been handled

 

I've been running my HM250JI 24/7 for over a year now with hard use. Fiddled for days with the settings, and the clunk is still there. Settings like 192 for the APM and 254 for the AAM give only a few clicks a day. Setting the APM to 255, which keeps the head on the platter generates too much heat for me by keeping the voice coil powered up, and the drive seems to clunk quite often when in that mode. I"ve never once heard any BEEPing from the drive lol.... that would be funny. I've noticed the drive does the Load/Unload cycle normally, where it wipes the heads (perhaps for a heat calibration) normally and all you hear is the equivalent to a Hitachi drive parking it's heads. But 50% of those Load/Unload cycles seems to be abnormal and thus the clunk. The heads park on this drive very silently, inaudibly.. it's just this need to Load/Unload for whatever reason, that half of them are faulty. Drive still works flawlessly though... which is a bit bewildering. I tried to swap it for a Fujitsu 250GB 5400rpm, but it's way too slow and it's normal operation is too loud after being spoiled by the samsung, just the weird random clunk stops this drive from being the absolute quietest on the market.....