I also ordered the 8600 (750 $ off) and got last week. I was surprised to find out the ticking noise from hard disk. Mine is 80 gig Hitachi disk. Later I found so many people compaining. My first purchase from Dell. Very bad. May never buy one more. I wonder how they do their QA ?
Then I browsed Dell's forums and found so many people shouting about this.
( http://forums.us.dell.com/supp...oard.id=insp_harddrive )
I also found a microcode update for the Hitachi 80 gig Travelstar and other drives. Installed that,
rebooted. No change. Same old ticking noise.
I called Dell last Friday night. The rep asked me to run diagonostics.
She asked me to remove hard disk and then power up. To check if the drive is indeed making noise. After 45 minutes, and after threatening to send the laptop back to return with 21 days, she told
they will send the replacement. I asked if they can send Toshiba or other brand hard disk. Told only exact replacement will be sent. I thought ok, let me try that.
1) My question is whether the problem will disappear or not with a new hard disk. One thing I noticed, if I load Linux the clicking noise does not come always. This leads me to believe something in windows triggering it every 1 second.
2) If i install win xp pro, will it go away ?
What could be the problem - hhitachi hard disk, windows xp, driver for disk, microcode in the disk.
But I am surprised I have to do all these to rectify a brand new notebook. I wanted to buy a Toshiba from Costco, but at last minute I fell prey to Dell's deals. Now I regret... Costco has a 6 months no questions asked return policy on notebooks. To save a few dollars I feel I have burnt myself... Ok enough ranting,
Please help!
Then I browsed Dell's forums and found so many people shouting about this.
( http://forums.us.dell.com/supp...oard.id=insp_harddrive )
I also found a microcode update for the Hitachi 80 gig Travelstar and other drives. Installed that,
rebooted. No change. Same old ticking noise.
I called Dell last Friday night. The rep asked me to run diagonostics.
She asked me to remove hard disk and then power up. To check if the drive is indeed making noise. After 45 minutes, and after threatening to send the laptop back to return with 21 days, she told
they will send the replacement. I asked if they can send Toshiba or other brand hard disk. Told only exact replacement will be sent. I thought ok, let me try that.
1) My question is whether the problem will disappear or not with a new hard disk. One thing I noticed, if I load Linux the clicking noise does not come always. This leads me to believe something in windows triggering it every 1 second.
2) If i install win xp pro, will it go away ?
What could be the problem - hhitachi hard disk, windows xp, driver for disk, microcode in the disk.
But I am surprised I have to do all these to rectify a brand new notebook. I wanted to buy a Toshiba from Costco, but at last minute I fell prey to Dell's deals. Now I regret... Costco has a 6 months no questions asked return policy on notebooks. To save a few dollars I feel I have burnt myself... Ok enough ranting,
Please help!
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