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Hitachi Deskstar 7k400 Makes Vibration Noises

N

NietzscheRCN

Senior member
I have had this installed for a month now and it randomly vibrates. It sounds kinda like when a fridge turns on and starts vibrating. I am completely stumped. It only happens when idle and then it is completely random. I have run Hitachis DFT and PC Check on it to no avail. Every test I do comes up perfect. Should I be worried about failure or let it go.

Thanks
 
I know this sounds stupid but have you tightened the hardrive/hard-drive cage screws? Sometimes if they are not tightened you can get some vibration noise. I apologize if you have done this already. Sometimes the screws loosen a touch and vibration begins to leak into the drive
 
I have the SATA version of that drive and mine doesn't do that. But alas, it is noisy when it's busy. Should have gotten a Seagate.
 
Try and see if it's the actual drive itself. Run your computer with the sidepanel off. It just might be the case. Does it vibate like a cell phone or is it slower?
 
I am using the SATA version. I have the case open to try and fiddle with it when it starts producing noise. I know it's the drive because the sound emanates from it and when I unplug power from the the Hitachi drive the noise never comes back. In terms of the vibration it is like refridgerator when it turns on. I guess that would be slower than a cell phone if I took a educated guess. Any more info you need?
 
You could try putting the drive on rubber washers to prevent it from transmitting vibration to the case and amplify the amount of noise produced.

To begin with, try taking the hard drive out of the case and letting it run while it is hooked up, but outside the case, after placing it on some sound dampening material (like a couple of magazines).
 
I have dreaded doing this as all my wires are zipped down. I guess I have no other choice. Hitachi wants me to send them the error log on the DFT utility even though it came up with no errors. Any one have experience with RMAing with them. Good or Bad to deal with.
 
I have the same thing happening to me; complicated by the fact I have two of them, so I'll have to isolate each one to see which one is the offender. I have them in an HTPC, so the buzzing sound is driving me nuts and has gotten louder in the last month or so.

Have you tried running the Feature tool and enabling Acoustic Management? I tried but the tool freezes on my PCI IDE controller. I may have to put them in a different machine and boot to PC-DOS to enable.

For the price of these drives it really burns my butt, just when I got my HTPC working well and ripped most of my DVDs to it...bummer.
 
I wonder if its the same as this...

Hitachi Deskstar drive "meows" during drive check

Some drive owners are clearly dissatisfied with this frequent meowing


By Mario Rodrigues: Monday 23 February 2004, 08:56

WEB SITE Envy News has picked up on a meowing sound that is a characteristic feature of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 hard drive.
According to Hitachi, the meowing sound is the result of a relatively new feature which verifies the performance and reliability of the drive. But up to this time, the drive manufacturer has not been able to suppress the noise.

There is a thread on this issue, and one drive owner has provided a sound link of the meowing. The noise apparently repeats itself about once every ten minutes, or six times every hour. One drive owner finds the sound "totally horrible", and has asked for a fix from Hitachi to remove it. Others are clearly intolerant of it.

Hitachi has said to one concerned drive owner: "Hitachi Global Storage Technology drives have various internal procedures that verify the performance and reliability of the drive. This is a relatively new feature of our drives and, with no way to suppress the noise, it can be mistaken for drive problems. Unless this is something the drive has just begun doing or you are experiencing problems, there is nothing to worry about."

All of our 7K250 drives, as well as any future product releases will have this feature. At this time, there is no way to disable it. Anti-vibration materials will not eliminate the noise, but it may help to minimize actually hearing the noise."

Even though this meowing sound is clearly upsetting some drive owners, at least it?s not the "click of death", which plagued an earlier Deskstar generation.

So for those who are in the market for a new hard drive, you?ll want to bear Hitachi?s meowing problem in mind.
 
I certainly don't think that describes my situation. "meowing" is definitly not what mine does. I have run the DFT and it came with no errors. Hitachi tech has been very quick to respond. All they said was that the vibration was a little higher than normal but well within tolerances. He asked to furnish a audio clip of the noise which I will hopefully get to soon. I will let you know what happens if you wish.
 
They said the noise was certainly a vibration of some sort. Not an indicator of failure though. I believe they will be replacing it with a cross shipment special just for me. Isn't that nice.
 
I'm glad they're being responsve for you. My issue is definitely as described in the article above. You can set your watch to the noise returning every 10 minutes. Your post caught my eye because it also resembles a refrigerator compressor motor starting up as well. Mine also show no errors, and the drives are very qucik and quiet enough except for this issue. I play 1080i HDTV movies through it without a hitch. I guessl I'll try some sort of isolation mounts on them to help quiet it down.

Thanks for your info.
 
It sucks that you can't turn it off. I do think that they will come out with a fix at some point though. Enough people have complained about what you mention for them to. If possible can you send me a audio clip of what your drive does. I would like a comparison to mine.
 
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