drive return question

[Jada]

hello all I have a little problem I recently purchased a maxtor 80gb 7200rpm 8mb buffer hard disk drive with ultra quiet fdb motor"?". everything was fine data was being accessed much faster than my old 5400 2mb buffer disk so i was super happy. until the next day i loaded up my system and every time i would access programs like even opening internet explorer i would hear a small gargling noise i thought nothing of it as days went bye the gargling noise began to get louder and worse even when accessing the my documents folder. i have only used 10gb of the 80gb drive so i know i am not low on space. but it makes no noise when its not being accessed but when opening simple programs like internet explorer or even my computer the gargling noise begans again infact all the time now. i read post here and one member described his hardisk noise from a maxtor drive that sounds like rolling marbles and that is definitely the sound i am getting. i have a 30 day return policy from my recipt so should i return it or will the result be the same. i even tried putting card boar between the drive and the mounting brackets no luck tried diffent areas of the case no luck there. it boggles me because i have another maxtor drive 7200rpm 2mb buffer and its super quiet but slow. so i just wanted to know if you guys could give me any input before i return it back

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Jada on 01/14/05 12:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Codesmith]

I can't be sure without actually hearing it, but it sounds like a mechanical problem with the drive. Is it vibrating. If it is making loud noises and vibrating then its going to fail and probably sooner rather than later.

I would contact Maxtor and see if they will do an advance replamenent RMA, where they send you a new drive and you send the defective one back in the same package. (Will cost you <$5 via fedex ground).

Then again some people hear normal hard drive noises and freak out thinking something is wrong when it isn't. A 7200 rpm is going to be louder than a 5400 rpm.

If you are not sure whether or not these are normal noises you can talk to maxtor's tech support, they will probably do a better job of describing normal vs abnormal noises than I could

 

[Crashman]

If your drive is being accessed often with lots of seeks, you might be running off virtual RAM. That could be caused by lot of things (too little memory, programs running in the background). However if it's getting noisier, it could be a drive problem.

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[Jada]

Hey all thank you for the replies. Here are some more symptoms a simple right click on the desktop takes a while to get the menu and the gargling noise gets louder when I do a right click. After an application has been minimized to the windows task bar when I maximize it the gargling noise starts again and then the window is maximized. So i dont think this is normal. Do any of you experience these symptoms with maxtor drives? I will try to return it back today I brought it from fry's electronics if you guys have ever heard of that. again thanx for the help

 

[Codesmith]

Just an odd thought. You sure the noises are comming from the hard drive itself. Some cheap sound cards pick up stray electromagnetic interference from your system.

I had a PC with a cheap integrated sound card which make noises (from my speaker system) when I moved or clicked the mouse.

 

[folken]

I'd replace that thing.

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[Jada]

hey all again thanx so much for the replies. well here is the verdict i returned the maxtor 80gb hardisk and exchanged it for the same one got home let it sit for room temp for and hour removed from the anti shock bag installed using maxblast followed by installing windows same gargling noise. in replies to Codesmith i disabled all my on board devices. i even moved the computer away from the surge and the subwoofer still same noise every time the drive is been accessed. my mother board is and albatron kx600pro and its capable of using ultra ata inside of windows the ide controller says ultra dma mode 6 so i dont think there is a problem there. my case is all metal i have a removable drive bay compartment which the hard disk sits in at the very bottom and its in tight. i also had a maxtor 5.5 bay mounting kit tried that also no luck. so i dont know what maxtor meant by ultra quiet fdb motor but they lied on there packaging unless i am totally missing something so guys i guess i am stuck with the drive cant be defective its the second one. thanx for all the replies

 

[folken]

Something must be vibrating in your case, those things aren't THAT loud on their own. You really shouldn't hear it being accessed.
What cpu, ram, etc. do you have? What do you currently have your virtual memory set to?

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[Jada]

to Folken here are my current system specs cpu athlon 2600+barton core, 256ddr ram, maxtor 80gb 7200rpm 8mb cache, Nvidia 64mb 4xagp,albatron kx600pro motherboard.

current virtual memory assigned by windows xp
initial size (mb) 384
maximum size (mb) 768


I have a total of four fans one on the cpu ,one on the nvidia agp card, one small fan on the albatron motherboard, one case fan all screwed in tightly

the maxtor hard disk is located in the removable drive bay and is the only device in the bay at the bottom the removable bay is metal, I opened the case and began to open programs and i could hear the hard disk make noise it does not appear to be vibrating,

if you have other suggestions i will be glad to try those also

 

[folken]

That is a pretty low ammount of ram
What does your ram usage normally look like? you might want to get at least another 256mb of ram.
Only 256mb of ram makes me think you are chewing on your virtual memory a lot.

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[Jada]

hello thanx for the reply. usally i have about 28 process running and in the task manager it says availiable 117mb. but i even hear the noise durning the boot screen. i have a maxtor 7200rpm drive with 2mb cache buffer model number 2b020h1 the really thin drives and it makes no noise even when accessing on the same system. but with the new drive Maxtor 6y080p0 even when i shut down i hear the noise. i will try to add more memory and see how that works out

 

[Codesmith]

Maybe your Folders and MFT are so badly fragmented that you the hard drive has to jump all over the place to open up a simple folder?

Download HD Tac 3.?.? (its free, google it). Listen when it gets to the random access test. My 10,000 RPM Raptor gargles loudly durring that phase, but is resonably quiet durring sequentail reads.

If all else fails buy a louder heatsink fan

 

[Jada]

you guys will never believe so far I have solved my problem. I accidently was surfing the internet and came across a tool from maxtor called amset.exe I did more research on this tool from the maxtor site its a drive acoustic software. I followed the directions set the mode to quiet and bam there is no noise. perfectly quiet yeah!!! they say your suppoesed to take a performance loss if you set the mode to quiet but I really have not seen anything as of yet so I just wanted to re-post just incase anyone else has a maxtor drive noise problem

 

[folken]

Cool. It must turn down the rpms, hence the performance loss. Oh well as long as it is quiet I guess that is ok

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