New IBM Thinkpad R31 Funky Noises

[mkool]

I got an R31 off ebay earlier today, and i'm psyched about it! Here are the specs if you're interested:

P3 1.16ghz
128mb ram
30gb hitachi hdd
DVD/CD-R/W Teac
14.1"
802.11b intel miniPCI wireless network (didn't even state this was included in auction!)
win xp pro

I got a steal on it too!

Anyway, when I booted it up, everything worked perfectly and it seemed too good to be true. The hard drive was barely audible even when it was maximum seeking and such. No dead pixels, etc. However, when the hard drive is left alone, every couple seconds (or every half minute) you will intermittently hear a clicking sound from the hard drive. It's akin to a springing click, like the head moving back and forth really quickly. The drive doesn't malfunction in any other way, everything loads fine, times are fast, etc....but the sound bothers me. What do you think it indicates? The best I can describe it is a springy click sound, kinda like a hard drive going "Boing!" Any suggestions?

 

[emu10k2]

My ThinkPad does it too, TP 770Z. The HD does it in DOS or Windows, so it is performing thermal recalibs or, in the case of Windows 2k/XP, running the indexing service or writing the NTFS log file to disk periodically.

Hope that helps. IMHO this noise is normal.

 

[mkool]

i'm glad to hear this is the case. However, i want to reiterate that this noise is unlike the normal operating noise of the drive, it sounds very different.... that's why i was wondering if everything was ok.

 

[mikecel79]

A few of our Dell Latitude LS machines make this noise. Some have IBM drives and others have Hitachi. They both make the sound though. If your worried about the drive, run a Scandisk on it.