Periodic Single Seek Noise

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Djehuty

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Jun 17, 2011
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Greetings,

My computer recently started doing something that I find unsettling. It will make a single hard drive seek noise, repeated every few seconds (in the vicinity of ten, but the interval is not constant). It will do this for a while, then stop, then start again some time later. I have not been able to link it positively to any software I have running, and even when I close all programs it continues for a while.

The noise is a very quiet sort of *tock* sound, accompanied by a very slight vibration. I can definitely feel it best when I touch the hard drives (two WD Black drives in a RAID 0 setup). It is not a click, and the drives are not whirring, whining, or grinding. It definitely sounds and feels like standard hard drive seeking -- but only ONE movement, as if the arm were repeatedly moving most of the way across the drive in search of some crucial bit of data that it has to read every few seconds.

I've turned off scheduled backups (I had only recently enabled them, and that was the only major change before this started). I've defragged twice. I've uninstalled the few programs I had lurking on the drive that I never use. And so far, I haven't been able to stop this odd behavior.

Might anyone know what's going on?
 
Solution
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Problem solved... weirdly. At least, I'm about 98% certain the problem has been solved. I waited to post this until I'd gone a few days without a single *tock* noise.

First and foremost, thank you all for your help! And thank you for taking this seriously enough to offer your assistance. It was a small noise, but in my prior experience strange new noises from computers are not good things. Now, the weird solution:

It was a screw.

My computer resides in an Antec P183 case. Among other modular bits and pieces, the hard drives are screwed into a removable tray. This hard drive tray slides along a plastic track and is secured with a single screw. It's not a bad design, and works well to reduce noise and vibration from the...
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fzabkar

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Sep 22, 2010
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The HDD Oracle is not a malicious site. In fact I am a forum member there. Due to its free and open nature, there are many in the data recovery business who would like to see this forum disappear. The server has been attacked several times, and many people have tried to discredit it. Some software may appear to be infected with Trojans, but so far these have always been false positives. If you are concerned, then you could upload suspicious files or URLs to Virustotal where they will be scanned by around 40 different AV software.

https://www.virustotal.com/

As for your question, a Background Media Scan happens automatically during idle periods. It is not initiated by the OS. Whether this is what you are hearing, I can't say. Sorry.

Anyway, here is the same information in Google's text-only cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?strip=1&q=cache:http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/enterprise/savvio/Savvio%252015K.1/SAS/100407739c.pdf#43
 
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Djehuty

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Jun 17, 2011
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Fzabkar, I wasn't trying to discredit the website, I was merely stating a fact: the link brought up warnings from ESET NOD32 Antivirus. I know nothing about that site, good or bad, except what you've just posted. If you're a member there, and these warnings are unwarranted, maybe you could tell the administrators so that they can get things straightened out. No harm, discrediting, or other offense intended. :)

Popatim, thanks for the suggestions.

I was aware that many processes go on in the background. What's bothering me isn't background activity, it's this completely new and, in my experience, highly unusual noise. But if you folks think it's nothing to worry about, I shall try not to worry about it. :)
 
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Djehuty

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Jun 17, 2011
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An update: I've tried using the Microsoft Process Monitor and Process Explorer, and I cannot figure out what's causing this odd new seek-ish noise. The Process Explorer isn't registering a hard drive read or write that coincides with the sound. I thought I had something with the Process Monitor, a group of "UDP Receive" actions from the other computer on my home network, but the sound continued at the same frequency even after I shut off internet access.

What baffles me, and has me updating my question, is that it's not constant. The one time I had a hard drive go bad, the noises it made were more severe, less regular, and they didn't start up, tick along for a while, and then stop. Also, these are pretty new hard drives -- and, of course, the drives are still working just fine, or seem to be.

Is there any way I can find out what my hard drive is doing?
 
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Djehuty

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Jun 17, 2011
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Problem solved... weirdly. At least, I'm about 98% certain the problem has been solved. I waited to post this until I'd gone a few days without a single *tock* noise.

First and foremost, thank you all for your help! And thank you for taking this seriously enough to offer your assistance. It was a small noise, but in my prior experience strange new noises from computers are not good things. Now, the weird solution:

It was a screw.

My computer resides in an Antec P183 case. Among other modular bits and pieces, the hard drives are screwed into a removable tray. This hard drive tray slides along a plastic track and is secured with a single screw. It's not a bad design, and works well to reduce noise and vibration from the drives.

The other day, I noticed that the noise had become slightly louder and sharper. I feared this meant one or both drives were working their way toward failure, so I opened the case to feel the drives and see if the vibration was coming from one drive in particular. But the little jolts from the arm seeking didn't seem any more intense. Since I could only reach one drive, I had to unscrew that fastening screw to take out the tray to see what the other drive was up to... and when I did, the screw immediately slipped up by one thread with precisely the same *tock* I'd been hearing, only louder.

I unscrewed the thing (three more thread-slipping *tocks*), pulled the tray out, reseated it more firmly, put the screw back in place... and so far, no noises. Apparently the tray was pressing against the screw, which in turn was pressing against the side of the hole through which it is threaded in precisely the right way for a thread to be slipping just a tiny bit as the seek arm moved.

I am far from being an expert with the inner workings of computers, but neither am I a novice. I have been using computers in one form or another since 1980. I have been building my own since 1993. I have NEVER had a computer do anything like this.

So again, I thank you for your assistance, and I apologize for accidentally wasting your time with such a bizarre but trivial issue.
 
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