Avoid z61p unless you like a noisy computer.

I am in the process of returning a z61p due to the excessive hard drive noise. You can hear the hard drive every time the computer access it, to the point that is annoying and distrcting. Lenove sent me a new hard drive which made no difference. This computer has a 100 gig 7,200 rpm one. Anyway if I had known this I would had gone another route. My wife owns a t42 or t41 I believe, hers is quiet, as any other laptop I had seen. I got the computer, screen, keyboard etc. I am fighting to avoid the 15% restocking fee, so much for quality...

 

Why do they want to charge your restocking fee? Isn't it defective?

 

I believe mrumiano ordered the Z61P from other places. Lenovo doesn't charge restocking fee even there is nothing wrong with the machine!
Instead of returning it, why not buy another 100GB 7200rpm yourself? The Seagate momentus 7200.1 I am using is very quiet, even quieter than the Hitachi 5400rpm my T60 came stock with.

 

There's not much Lenovo can do about the hard drive noise, suspending them or cushioning them could reduce seek noise but there's not much room for that. It's pretty much up to the hard drive manufacturers to make a quiet 7200rpm drive.

If you have a Hitachi drive, you can try turning on AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) which quiets down the seek noise but with a relatively small performance hit.

 

In United States, lenovo DOES charge a %15 restocking fee if the machine is opened and not defective.

 

I didn't know that. Here in Canada absolutely no restocking fee.

 

When you say they sent you a new harddrive, did they send you another 100gb 7200rpm? If so, you should get them to send you a different harddrive. Harddrive noise is really the harddrive manufacturer's problem. If you haven't, I'd try a non-7200rpm drive before giving up on the computer.