a mysterious loud click from the HDD (Cosmos IV Laptop)

[mtea]

Hello everyone,

A week has passed since i received my laptop from PCS (a Cosmos IV Laptop) and ever since the first day i kept hearing a strange sound coming from the HDD. Now, i know clicks coming from the head moving into "rest state" are pretty common, but the sound went on even when i set the advanced power management to never turn off the hard disk.
The HDD i'm currently talking about is a WD Black Scorpio (750GB), even though the system is installed on a SSD Samsung 850 evo (250gb).
This strange click happens not so frequently (every 10-15 minutes and sometimes more). I registered it. Even though it has been amplified by the recording, it still pretty loud (and that's strange): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/65595858/Record_0001c.wav

The SMART tests are all good, and the hdd is performing great, also, i don't think the noise is coming from the fan, since it doesn't seem to be related to its spinning (it turns on just sometimes, the laptop runs pretty cool).
The only "manual" operation i made on the hardware is moving the HDD from the internal slot to the HDD caddy bay, and placing the SSD in the internal slot. the screws are tight and the HDDs are firm in place.

If you say it's just a normal HDD operating sound, i'm ok with that, but if it something worse i'm pretty worried...

Thanks in advance!

 

[Wivelden]

I posted about this yesterday. I have the same HD and have never heard any HD's I have had in the past make this sound unless it was failing. I was told it was just powering down into a low power state.

 

[Pagey]

It is a power saving function of the HDD. There are a few issues with this particular feature though:
Firstly most drives will be set to a very low active time to save energy by shutting down the drive when it's not being used to save battery power, usually between 8-30 seconds.
This is all fair and well when the drive is being used as a C: drive as the drive will be accessed more often than not, but still saving a bit of power.
As a secondary drive it becomes a pain in the bum as the drive may be used to install games on, and if a game is being accessed on that drive it may only run for a few seconds to load up some assets then park once it's idled for a few seconds, when the game requires more assets it unparks and reads the data, and basically continues the cycle of parking and unparking. Some games I've played have this effect on the drive and in about 1 hours worth of gaming there must have been about 50 odd power cycles to the HDD. The issue here is the the spinning up of the platters every time the HDD activate and can put stress on the drive motor if it's being forced to do it a LOT of times. There is part in the SMART test to actually show how many power cycles it's been through.

There is a way of changing the power down time by changing the BIOS of the HDD through Ubuntu, it is a little long winded but I've changed the 8 second idle time to a more reasonable 5 minutes and is actually a permanent option.

 

[mtea]

It is a power saving function of the HDD. There are a few issues with this particular feature though:
Firstly most drives will be set to a very low active time to save energy by shutting down the drive when it's not being used to save battery power, usually between 8-30 seconds.
This is all fair and well when the drive is being used as a C: drive as the drive will be accessed more often than not, but still saving a bit of power.
As a secondary drive it becomes a pain in the bum as the drive may be used to install games on, and if a game is being accessed on that drive it may only run for a few seconds to load up some assets then park once it's idled for a few seconds, when the game requires more assets it unparks and reads the data, and basically continues the cycle of parking and unparking. Some games I've played have this effect on the drive and in about 1 hours worth of gaming there must have been about 50 odd power cycles to the HDD. The issue here is the the spinning up of the platters every time the HDD activate and can put stress on the drive motor if it's being forced to do it a LOT of times. There is part in the SMART test to actually show how many power cycles it's been through.

There is a way of changing the power down time by changing the BIOS of the HDD through Ubuntu, it is a little long winded but I've changed the 8 second idle time to a more reasonable 5 minutes and is actually a permanent option.

Thanks for you answer!
So i guess the advanced power management in windows can't do anything to fix that...
I already tried to get into the BIOS settings, but functions have been limited to just the essential
I'll search if there's a way to do that with Windows...otherwise i'll have to go the long way trying with ubuntu.
I really can't understand why they set the idle times so strict...there's not always the need of saving energy at all costs

 

[Wivelden]

Well if they fail then we can always get them replaced under warranty. I bought two and have them set to mirror so I wont lose data if one fails.

 

[Wozza63]

Control Panel -> System & Security -> Power Options -> Change plan settings -> Change advanced power settings -> Hard disk -> Turn off hard disk after.... (0 = never)

 

[mtea]

Control Panel -> System & Security -> Power Options -> Change plan settings -> Change advanced power settings -> Hard disk -> Turn off hard disk after.... (0 = never)

Already did that but nothing changed...it seems the HDD is handling it on its own...I've now tried Advanced Power Management from CrystalDiskInfo...if it won't work i'll then try with WDIDLE3.exe which is supposed to be the best method to set or disable the idle times.

EDIT: It didn't work...next try: WDIDLE3

 

[Pagey]

There was a whole tread somewhere about the whole issue, a lot of people are pretty unhappy with it, but the HDD manufacturers just keep sticking to their guns. The Ubuntu route is the only permanent way to fix it, all others are temporary and will revert to normal once the PC is restarted. I'll try and find the appropriate thread out for the fix.

Found it!

 

[Wozza63]

I guess some laptop manufacturers were complaining that WD weren't doing enough to help with laptop battery life? Only reason I can think they are ignoring customers on the issue. Should still be offering an easier solution for those that notice the issue and want to fix it. I imagine they could put this into a simple exe quite easily.

 

[SpyderTracks]

There was a whole tread somewhere about the whole issue, a lot of people are pretty unhappy with it, but the HDD manufacturers just keep sticking to their guns. The Ubuntu route is the only permanent way to fix it, all others are temporary and will revert to normal once the PC is restarted. I'll try and find the appropriate thread out for the fix.

Found it!

Interesting thread, so this is purely a firmware level setting that wd refuse to alter, that's pretty bad of wd. It's far too aggressive at present.

 

[Pagey]

@Wozza365: My best guess is that Windows can't get access to low level functions like that as it would give people with no idea what they're doing easy access to break and modify things, hence why it can only be done in Ubuntu. The Ubuntu process actually uses a specifically made programme to edit the HDD's BIOS.

@SpyderTracks: I spent ages researching what was going on only to find out that all current PC software wouldn't even touch it, then found out I'm not the only person with the same issue. If so many people are having all these issues then surely WD and many others should allow easier access to these options. But as I said to Wozza365 it would just mean that the drives would be easy to break.

At least there is a good fix for it, I've already fixed my 1TB WD BLUE using the method with minimal fuss, though ideally if anyone was going to try this, do it on a blank drive as you have no idea what it might do to the data.

 

[mtea]

There was a whole tread somewhere about the whole issue, a lot of people are pretty unhappy with it, but the HDD manufacturers just keep sticking to their guns. The Ubuntu route is the only permanent way to fix it, all others are temporary and will revert to normal once the PC is restarted. I'll try and find the appropriate thread out for the fix.

Found it!

Great! Thanks, I'll definitely try this
How long would you suggest to set the APM Timer? 300sec or disabled? Some say that a drive constantly spinning is a way better for its lifetime than a drive constantly turning on and off...

 

[Wozza63]

I'd definitely have some kind of value on it, just in case you leave the laptop on idle for a while and it drains your battery

 

[Pagey]

That's kinda subjective. XD

I personally keep mine set to 300 seconds as most of the time I don't actually need the drive to spin, but when I do need it to spin it doesn't stop half way through whatever I'm doing causing annoying dleays. I suppose continually running is ok if you're going to be using the HDD a reasonable amount, but if the drive is going to be idling for a while, is there a point in keeping it running?

Again, it's very subjective, and depends entirely on what you want it to do.

 

[mtea]

What. the. hell.
I tried with the ubuntu method and apmtimer and when i first checked the idle time was DISABLED.
So it was disabled from the beginning, apparently. And the noise is not caused by that
I don't know what to think...
here's my SMART results...the Load/Unload Cycles value is at 198, the same value of 6 days ago and maybe more.

 

[Bastet]

I hear the HDD when Norton Security is doing a full system scan. Never heard any HD on a previous laptop.

 

[msoames21]

It might be worth getting hold of a copy of DataLifeguard from WD (Its free, google it ) & run a short DST (Drive Self Test). We get all sorts of drives through work and all manufacturers have similar software, seatools for (Guess who )) & drive fitness for HGST drives. Its the best way to beat up a manufacturer with their own diagnostics! Lol!

Clicking in a hard drive to me is a sign of mechanical failure... Start thinking about backing up data...

Hope that helps

 

[RoyalistGamer]

I have the same issue. I got a Optimus vii laptop with a Samsung 250GB SSD as my main drive and a 750GB WD Black (7200rpm) as my secondary drive. The 750GB hard drive was installed in a Optical Hard Drive Bay Caddy. The hard drive occasionally made clicking noises, just like the sound you recorded every 10 minutes or so. I called PC Specialist as I was worried it could be a sign of hard drive failure but they told me that it was normal for the 750GB WD Black to make these noises. I did SMART tests on my hard drive and it always passed. My way of solving the click issue was to install a program called KeepAliveHD. This program writes a 1KB file onto the hard drive repeatedly after a set time to prevent the hard drive from going to sleep. I set it to write a file every minute, which has helped stop the occasional clicking noise. Make sure you set it to auto-run at start-up so that it can function properly without you having to launch it manually every time you turn on your laptop. Hope my information helps.

 

[Wozza63]

I have the same issue. I got a Optimus vii laptop with a Samsung 250GB SSD as my main drive and a 750GB WD Black (7200rpm) as my secondary drive. The 750GB hard drive was installed in a Optical Hard Drive Bay Caddy. The hard drive occasionally made clicking noises, just like the sound you recorded every 10 minutes or so. I called PC Specialist as I was worried it could be a sign of hard drive failure but they told me that it was normal for the 750GB WD Black to make these noises. I did SMART tests on my hard drive and it always passed. My way of solving the click issue was to install a program called KeepAliveHD. This program writes a 1KB file onto the hard drive repeatedly after a set time to prevent the hard drive from going to sleep. I set it to write a file every minute, which has helped stop the occasional clicking noise. Make sure you set it to auto-run at start-up so that it can function properly without you having to launch it manually every time you turn on your laptop. Hope my information helps.

Interesting. Can settings be customized for when the laptop is on battery? That would be my biggest concern if I were to do this, having 2 hard drives spinning in my laptop will drain the battery extremely quickly.

 

[RoyalistGamer]

Interesting. Can settings be customized for when the laptop is on battery? That would be my biggest concern if I were to do this, having 2 hard drives spinning in my laptop will drain the battery extremely quickly.

I don't believe you can set it to automatically change its settings when running on battery. You can however easily disable it from writing the 1KB file by just unticking 'Enable writing mode' on the Configuration Tab. You can also simply change how often it will write the file. The program itself is very simple and puts itself in your notification area when you close or minimize it, as long as you have edited the settings for it to do that. This way it is easy to access and modifying its settings will literally take a few seconds.