Clicking noise...

Hmmm... I am having a clicking issue, too. Although my click is more like a 'tink.' It does not coincide with the HD light flashing. It only seems to happen within the first 15 minutes after boot up, perhaps when the computer is cool. 'Tinks' happen at various intervals during a 1-2 minute period. Also coming from left side under keyboard. Hmmm... Weird.

 

I'm having the same problem... as a college student, the noise can be especially irritating in a quiet classroom setting.

I contacted Dell support and was instructed to reseat my HDD. I did so, unscrewing and taking the HDD out of the laptop and taking off the holder; I then proceeded to screw everything back together.

Unfortunately, the problem did not correct itself and it still makes the same annoying noise.

I just contacted Dell again today and they are sending me another HDD... hopefully it will fix the problem at the expense of all the data I'm going to lose

 

i had my HDD replaced by dell days ago..i reinstalled everything back..only to find out that nothin new has changed with the new drive they sent me..it still makes this noise from time to time..clicking noise or kinda like there's a grinder inside..the first one is seagate then hitachi..still didn't fixed the problem so they even sent me a new latitude D630 to see if it is really the drive that's the problem..the new pc with a new drive didn't correct the problem still..so i don't know what to do now..if i'm just calling dell for replacement of HDD for nothin.

 

Hey guys,

I'm pretty sure this clicking is normal. So many people had their drives changed and it didn't fix anything...

 

had clicking noise when we first got our acer 3620... it eventually goes away and VERY VERY RARELY does it click... Its the HDD yes...

breaking in? or breaking? j.k

A.Ha. A.Ha. Ha..........

 

hmm with all of us having this problem, I wonder how Dell has not resolved this issue, my D630 is making the clicking noise and im about to be on my 3rd HDD .

 

Wonder if it's just the way the drive is responding with the OS. I can't wait for a firmware update so that we can enable fast write caching on the seagate drives.

 

I already wrote a thread about this annoyance of Seagate HDDs.
And a couple of users reported success when using my solution.

Changing the BIOS settings didn't help a bit with my clicking, but setting the HDD in NHC to performance mode did wonders.

And to users concerned with their drive failing (don't worry it's a technology used by Seagate drives to reduce the risk of HDD falling damage, HDD head parking while the drive is idle = permanent clicking noise accompanied by HDD light flashing).

Check out my Solution

PS: This only helps to get rid of the clicking that is used by the HDD head-parking technology. I would definitely check the drive with either some manufacturer utility or other hdd health checking software.

 

Hmmmmm, well I must admit that after doing your fix I have not heard that weird click noise anymore. Thanks for the tip. I wonder how many perfectly good hard drives Dell has replaced due to people asking about this noise?

 

I don't think that they had to exchange too many, as Dell uses a lot of different drive vendors. For some drives, changing the BIOS settings helped, for others like the Seagate 160GB HDD it didn't. And most folks actually never even experienced this issue. As the problem becomes apparent only when your computer enters idle mode, and you have power saving features enabled (like the portable/laptop profile in the windows power manager).

The clicking noise is actually a good thing, if you're traveling a lot with your notebook, since it protects the drive in a way against "shock" damage and reduces the power consumption of the system, unfortunately it's just f...ing annoying in a classroom or even at home (those nightly gaming/browsing sessions).

There's always something "wrong" with Dell laptops, take the screen for example: I got the AUO 2077 1440*900 screen....and no grain at all, but bad leakage on both top and bottom. Two weeks later I find out it's a new LCD backlight technology called LGP. After close examination I find out that when I play DVD's or games (Bioshock), the bleed completely disappears as if the screen reduced the backlight intensity.

 

Unfortunately, this is not coming.

Newer systems are automatically set to run in AHCI mode through the BIOS and utilize a program called the 'Intel Matrix Storage Manager'. Together, these already enably higher performance of your system and prevent you from 'Enhancing Write Caching' on your own. You may be able to check it off but when you exit and return, its unchecked again. Don't panic!!! Thats just the way it presently works.

(kudos to flamenko for pointing this out)
You can find even more tips for Vista in the following thread

 

I have. Should I be concerned? It's friggin annoying, but that's about it for the moment. I don't see ANY effects on performance.

 

Using the program described in this post, I have gotten rid of the issue:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=168425&highlight=clicking+noise+resolved

AFAIK, the sound was due to the hard drive head stopping (abruptly). Really pointless for power-saving, at it turns on again very shortly after.

 

Have someone with the Western Digital Scorpio HDD (for example WD1200BEVS) tried this:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9Y2xpY2tpbmc*&p_li=&p_topview=1

?