Clicking noise...

I recently received my 1720, and I have been hearing a strange clicking noise coming from underneath the keyboard, kind of on the left side. Is this normal, is anyone else experiencing this?

 

If the HDD is on the left side that is it. Have read C2D make noise but not clicking. HDD.

 

So it is normal. There's nothing wrong with my notebooks is there?

 

yeah, i got Vostro 1500, same thing happens once in while, sometime it bothers me, cause no other notebooks ive had make that noise, i wonder if that can noise can be resolved somehow

 

I thought clicking noise in HDD is not good. I may be wrong.

HDD may be faulty I heard... can anyone comment!!!

 

I got my 1520 today. the clicking noise is irrirating. I am chating with tech support to find out.

 

Please update me on what the problem is, and if it needs to fixed or whatever. Thanks!

 

i get this on my 1500. I dont hear it all the time, but when its quiet in the room, I can hear it. sounds like normal HD noise to me.

.

 

i haven't noticed it on my 1700

 

Tech support asked me to remove the HDD and if the noise goes away then they will replace HDD.

 

I had a similar experience with my Latitude, however it was coming from under the left palm rest (where the hard drive is located). I would hear a metallic clicking sound that seemingly occurred at random. Dell sent me a new hard drive and I haven't heard it since.

* Here is the link to my old thread about it.

 

Hard Drive clicking noise is a bad sign of a faulty hard drive and the first sign to back up all your stuff before the hard drive fails.

 

It is fairly common to get a little clicking out of the HDD. I've never had a computer where you could not hear it at all. Now that people mentioned it I finally heard it and I also have now heard the CPU whine everyone is talking about.

 

i dont think its faulty hard drive, i have several hard drives, checked 3 of them, and also we are not talking about regular clicking when hard drive working had. it just happens when laptop is on idle pretty much doing noting, right now i have 250 samsung hard drive, kind best of best and i dont think these a big chance to be faulty

 

8/20/2007 11:19:20PM Agent : "We need to remove the hard drive and then power on the computer to check if the noise continues."

08/20/2007 11:27:42PM Agent : "If the noise stops after removing hard drive, then the source of noise is hard drive, otherwise we would require troubleshooting further."

08/20/2007 11:32:23PM Me: "if the noise is from HDD whats the next step?"
08/20/2007 11:32:44PM Agent: "If the noise is from hard drive, then we would replace the hard drive."

Tech support details

 

That is a faulty drive if u hear singular random louder than normal work sounding clicks.

 

I have exactly the same problem

 

Not necessarily, lots of notebooks have HDs with random loud-ish clicking noises. Both of my Sony laptops do that and they've been running fine, for the last 4 years... as do lots of others I've used/had.

 

my gateway does that and gives out a little smoke it looks kinda BADASS but im pretty worried its gonna fry one of these days lol

 

i hope you keep a fire extinguisher handy

 

I really hope you're not serious about the smoke. Anyways, I've noticed that the clicking is less frequent now. I read from some past threads that clicking is normal, and it usually goes away. Mine seems to be less and less frequent. But please if anyone knows for a fact that this is a problem please tell, I don't want to loose my HDD.

 

Do you guys notice the drive activity light flashing in step with the "clicks"?
Just wondering if virus scan or indexing services just checking drive when idle..

 

If u have vista, it's normal Vista operation, it's always accessing HDD for whatever reason...

 

I tried disabling both system restore and superfetch and my hdd was still ticking like a clock once every second :S It stops every now and then, then starts again - and yes the HDD light does come on every time it ticks.

I checked the reliability and performance monitor, and it seems to be writing to quite a few different log files, which is the only thing i can see that could be causing it?

 

My old Compaq V2000 had this problem. It clicked continuously every about 3 seconds for about a month or two before it finally died and a blue screen came up asking you to push enter and what not. I replaced it and everything was fine until the backlight gave out and I tried to fix it and messed it up. So that's why I'm now on the NBR forums waiting for my 1420.

so anyway, definitely back up your stuff.

 

Exactly

 

Here is my experience. Seagate HD makes least noise, Hitachi HD makes the most noise (not sure about other HD brands). I have 160GB 7200 HD made by Hitachi in my 1420, it does produce significant clicking noise compare to my Seagate HD in my E1405 80GB 5400.

 

The clicks seem to be in sync with the light for me.

 

I can confirm. MY HDD clicks like crasy when i first got it. It seems to happen when i download stuff or actively access my HDD.
The big thing is when it makes this noise as though it jamed up. i might send dell a heads up and ask them to get me something new.
i wouldnt mind either, my disk is starting to fill up with crap right now. Windows Crashes durring Shutdown.

Btw guys just a heads up when sending ur HDD back.
http://consumerist.com/consumer/interviews/why-geeks-steal-porn-from-your-computer-276527.php

 

I have the same clicking noise problem with my Vostro 1500. It's really low noise like a ticking clock. I understood that it's the indexing service that's running in the background. I heard that you can deactivate this service somehow? My hard disk is a Seagate 160GB 5400 rpm.

 

Hi,

on my Inspiron 9400 I also have some "little louder than usual operation noise"-Clicking once in a while, it also happens when the hdd doesn't have very much to do, as in idle. When it's running permanently, I only here the normal "fast ticking" as the reading heads move around.

I noticed I get the louder Click-noise less frequent when the hdd is freshly defragged.

I also don't worry much about it, I think, a defective hdd sounds more "unhealthy". I also tested the hdd with HD Tune, but no errors were reported at all.

So I wouldn't change it too early, probably you only make yourself a lot of work reinstalling and configuring everything. Regular bakups should be obligatory anyway.

Greets

 

This is an old chestnut, and been around with Dell and others for years now.

What you have is a hard drive clicking noise, If you have a light that flashes everytime you hard drive is giving activity. It will usually click in time with the light.

It is made when the hard drive heads park. Both my 700m and 9300 do it, you used to be able to download a program from dell, it updates your drivers for your computer that will make it click less, at the expense of performance of the drive though. Not sure that is around anymore because it is simply part of the design.

Forget about the clicking. It happens on certain makes and models of hard drives.

 

My vostro 1500 ticks as well, even on the windows login screen. It stops for a few seconds every now and then, I turned indexing and system restore off but it still does it. HDD Light flashes each time it "ticks"

*EDIT* Interesting post jimmy_simms, thanks for the info.

 

Yes all HDDs "tick" but this time its very loud

 

I had the same with my Toshiba, well it is faulty, when the hdd cant read specific part the thing that reads it(forgot the name) gets away from the spinning plate and hits the cover. Well it will not break instantly, it can be year or more, but it will eventually break, so if you have warranty I suggest replacing it, plus I hate this freaking sound, one of the reason I am willing to pay more for SSD, this clicking sound happened in 3 of my hard drives, one broke others knowing what it is I replaced imiadetly, when will they offer 64 ssd...

 

i received my d630 yesterday, at first it also did some weird click noises from hard drive but after running disk defragmenter the sound disappeared. also i ran a few hdd tests, specifically seatools from seagate and hd tune, none of the tests failed and it has no errors.

oh and the hdd is a seagate momentus 7200.2 80gb version

 

Are you talking about this single louder "CLICK!", or just the normal "ticking" noise? The latter one is normal for every HDD by sure.

The point with a laptop is, you are so much closer to the HDD than on a desktop computer. On a Tower PC, I virtually never hear the HDD, but on a notebook, you can hear every little noise and worry much more about every click or clack or whatever.

I guess it's fine, as many people are reporting this noise. I don't think that all of them have a defective hdd. I notice it especially since I've turned the hdd mode to "performance" instead of "bypass" in the BIOS. I think I'll try setting it back. Has anyone tried if this makes a difference?

Edit: Mine is a Toshiba MK1234GSX 120GB

 

Thing is, the HDD light on my laptop flashes periodically in time with the ticking. My desktop HDD only makes any noise/flashes when I actually do something. My laptop ticks away, flashing, just sitting on the vista login screen.

 

Malc thats just one of vista's features it writes and reads information all the damn time dont know why tho, but it also does that on other computers ive used with vista

 

check your HDD access. theres probably a program you can use for seeing if it is doing anything in the background. clicking always comes from hard drive.

 

Ahh I had a feeling it was one of the "features" of Vista, I checked the performance and reliability monitor and the graph shows its doing something with .log files and $mft stuff all the time

 

Has anyone experienced the loud click which is *not* accompanied by the HDD light flashing? It'll just be a random CLICK out of the blue. The thing is, it can actually cause the computer to freeze up momentarily. I've noticed it a number of times while gaming (WoW), where the click will cause the entire game screen to freeze for less than half a second. It's extremely annoying... one thing is that I'm not 100% convinced that it's coming from the HDD, but it definitely sounds like it. Note that the issue occurs anywhere (in Windows, in a game, etc.).

 

Your hard drive is limping you should get a new one.

 

my 1520 is very noisy as well (with the hdd clicking). I mean it's constant...even when there isn't anything major running.

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 1720. Purchased late July 07. The clicking noise is on the left side. I have chatted with Dell and they had me "reseat" the hard drive. The clicking continues. I had an HP 17" Dimension and there were no clicking sounds. Of course, the mother board went in 18 months so that's why I tried a Dell. The clicking is annoying but I am more concerned if it is an issue or just an annoyance. I appreciate the posts.

 

Hi,

on mine, I set the acoustic mode in the bios back to the default value "bypass" and until now, looks like the click noise got less frequent than in "performance" with no noticeable or even "benchmarkable" performance decrease..

Maybe you have a look what your setting is.

Greets

 

I have a 1720 and have the same noise. It only happens once in awhile but it is under the keyboard on the left side. I have the Samsung 250GB drive. I have run diags on it and everything passes. At first the sound seemed like there was something momentarily caught in the fan or something. But now I feel it is coming from the HDD. I hope it is normal. I would truly hate to have to get a new drive and re-install everything. I got my laptop late July 07.

 

well I actually have a D630 with this problem, my first WD 120GB drive made these metallic clicking noises every 5-10 mins or so when the computer was idle, called up Dell and they sent me a replacement, now im on a Fujitsu Refurbished HD that is making a similar more prominent metallic click, (why dell would send me a refurb drive is beyond me) but I will call dell today and ask them to send me another and im prolly going to send the Fujitsu back.

 

Guys, this click has got nothing to do with Vista.

I got a D830 with a Seagate 160 GB 7200 RPM hdd, and the first thing I did was wipe off windows and install linux.

If I listed very carefully, it clicks, like you all described. It is not the same click as a normal hard drive read, actually it sounds like the drive is powering down very briefly or something. Playing around with the settings in the BIOS made no difference to the frequency of the clicks or the sound level.

How I solved the problem: I play music.

I know clicking is normally the sound of a drive about to go dead, but I don't think that is it. I have a three year warranty, and all my data is on a separate sever at home, so worst case scenario is I have to ask for a new drive.

 

Alright, I'm having this problem now on my Vostro 1400 which I got about 2 weeks ago. It only became noticeable to me when playing 'Dream of Mirror Online' and the noise has continued ever since.

I have had a few issues with crashing at windows startup but otherwise my performance doesn't seem to be suffering. It's just that while running the game I get this really annoying clicking from the left side of the notebook, it's pretty much constant and continues after I shut the game. And the strange thing is sometimes it disappears completely! HD tune shows no signs of any trouble and I've tried changing the BIOS settings as well to no avail.

I am hesitant to return the notebook as I have already installed and moved lots of files over to it, but if this is possibly the sign of a failing hard drive I want to deal with it before it's too late.

What would you all suggest I do?