7200 RPM vibration

Hi.
I just bought Western Digital Scorpio Black WD1600BEKT 160GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache.
It's fast, it's quiet, no clicking sounds, no heat problems but there's some vibration (once again it's not noise, just vibration). What can i do about it? After 1 hour working i fell my fingers "sleepy" (i've no ideia if it's the right word in english...)

I remeber some programs that had the possibility to manage the performance of the HD (NHC, HDTune Pro,....) but i never used that feature... Do you think these programs can help to reduce the performance when i don't need it?
Also read here that some people use some kind of rubbers but i've no ideia how to use it...

Thanks

 

Does your ASUS have any room in the harddrive caddy?
The vibration is made because their is a solid connection between the harddrive, then caddy, and than to the laptop. If there is any play or room inside you may want to get some thin rubber sheets to fill in the gaps. That will help absorb much of the vibration generated from your harddrive. You can rap the whole drive in rubber if you really wanted to, you just need the space for it. All you need to do is make sure not to cover up the air hole and the sata interface connector.

You can try using software, but I think hdparm is the best solution for the problem. You can adjust AAM and other values with it

K-TRON

 

Thanks for the reply.
Won't the rubber make the HD very hot?
Won't the rubber be very hot?
Is it safe?

 

Of course its safe, I wouldnt recommend something which will break your system.
Think about it this way. Their is no air circulation in your laptop harddrive bay unless your harddrives are actively cooled. That is not the case on your system.
If you are afraid it will get hotter, you should just put rubber around the connectors, so that it dampens the vibrations a bit. Just use a small rubber grommet around each connection screw between the harddrive and the caddy.

A little rubber goes a long way in removng vibrations. Most plastics and metals amplify vibrations, so if you minimize it at the source your system will be much quieter and vibrate less

The rubber doesnt need to be very thick, something thin like a bicycle tube patch kit will have what you will need to get this done.

K-TRON

 

No its safe. A lot of high end desktop cases come with rubber garmets for the feet of the hard drive. Not big, just kinda like a rubber washer that goes between the bottom of the hard drive and the case. The screw should go through it. Just a little bit of soft rubber should be enough to dampen the vibrations.

 

Thanks for the help.
Where exactly should i put it?





I don't understand some words (grommet, rubber washer...)
Another problem is what type of rubber (shape, size,..) and where to get it.

 

The red is where you can put rubber to dampen the vibrations:

Rubber grommets are these things:
http://www.toolstation.com/images/library/stock/webbig/68673.jpg

You can buy them at any hardware store.
You should also look for rubber sheets. You can buy a cheap bicycle tube, and just cut it up to get flat rubber sheets. Than strategically place them where I mentioned and you are good to go. Try to put some on all sides of the drive which touch the caddy, i.e. the longer sides of the drive and the 4 holes it mounts to, and a big piece between the laptop palmrest and the top of the harddrive

K-TRON

 

Thanks for all the help K-TRON, you're the best

 

I have the same drive. The first drive was vibrating in my unibody macbook. At first, people say its normal. I couldn't stand it. Its like having a massager on my palm rest. I asked people with the same drives and they told me that they do not feel any vibration on their notebooks with the same drive. For the heck of it, I returned it and bought another to see if it will make a difference. When I installed the second drive that I bought, it didn't vibrate at all.

Due to manufacturing tolerances, I guess some drives will vibrate more than others. If you can, try exchanging it to see if you can get a drive that vibrates less or doesn't vibrate at all.

 

Or just ensure that the screws securing the hard drive in the caddy are tight, along with the caddy itself. That would save a trip to the hardware store to buy rubber grommets...

 

For some reason, the lower capacity 7200rpm drives vibrated more than higher capacity ones. I have used 7200s from 60gb, to 120gb to 200gb to 320gb and now 500gb. I recall the 60gb vibrated a decent amount. In fact they all vibrated increasingly, from 60 to 120 to 200 and then 320. But Oddly enough the Seagate 7200.4 500gb I have now is soooo smooth and quiet (and no i do have that acoustic settings enabled). I am entirely impressed with this drive.

 

Hi I had vibrations as well
I put some rubber on cady under hdd under laptop ..
vib. gone ..

 

I am using Seagate 500GB 7200RPM and I am not feeling any vibration at all! Either the hard drive is very well balanced or the rubber blocks in the HDD bay are absorbing them very well...

--

 

Hi K-TRON, could you elaborate on where to put rubber on ?

1. Between caddy and drive ?
2. Between caddy and inner side of the laptop ?
3. Between caddy and cover of hard drive bay ?

And should i put rubber at the center or the rear ? I tried a lot of position (not with rubber though, packing paper for fragile items) but the vibration doesnt go away

 

You can safely mount small rubber pieces anywhere you have the space too. You just do not want to completely wrap the drive in rubber, as rubber is a thermal insulator. Small pieces maybe 1cm square positioned on the corners of the drive should work wonders.
If you have no room between the drive and the caddy, than mount the rubber between the caddy and the rest of the laptop.
The goal is to direct and absorb drive vibration from the source, which is the harddrive.

How thick of rubber are you using?
You should find basically 1-1.5mm thick rubber strips and cut them for your needs.

K-TRON

 

I managed to find a thin rubber band (0.5mm or so), cut it to small pieces and put them between caddy and drive and between caddy and laptop. The vibration reduces significantly but i can still feel it during typing. Time for return i guess ...

What a pity, cause this Seagate performs really well, cold start Firefox takes just 1-2 sec.

Is this a problem of all 7200.4 drives or just my bad luck ?