Can't make WD hard drives quieter with Asus AI Quiet motherboards

[dancingmatt]

Hi all

I'm about to buy 2 500GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS drives and I've read that you can reduce (although there isn't much to start with) some of the "noise" they make by enabling AAM... but I've read over on silentpcreview that if you have an Asus motherboard with AI Quiet, you can't enable AAM. Asus have disabled it as it's "not compatible with AI Quiet motherboards".



Does anyone have any Asus board with AI Quiet and a Western Digital drive, have you enabled AAM and got it to stay on, and how loud does it sound?

Thanks

DM

P.S. If you have a P5W-DH Deluxe motherboard and a WD5000AAKS then you have my intended setup and I would especially like to hear from you - but think it would be useful for all to know if this is relevant to all AI Quiet boards and drives.

[arthurleung]

I don't think AAM is dependent on motherboard (correct me if I'm wrong). If you want to change your AAM setting, download the Hitachi Feature Tools and adjust your AAM setting through the tool.

[dancingmatt]

You're right that AAM isn't dependent on motherboards and it can be set with Hitachi's Feature Tool, however allegedly Asus have disabled this on their AI Quiet boards.

So whatever setting you try with the Feature Tool will be cancelled and reset when you click Apply or OK with the tool.

I'd love to hear, however, that this isn't the case with a P5W-DH Deluxe and WD5000AAKS but have to suggest that any of you who think you have changed your AAM should check that your setting has "stuck".

DM

[amjedm]

Thanks for the info dancingmatt - I was going to get the 250 WD drive (same model) and remember reading something along those lines in SPCR

Any idea if a A8N SLi Premium is an AI Quiet mobo?

Thanks.

[dancingmatt]

No, don't think the A8N Sli Premium has AI Quiet.

Anyone else care to try their Asus board?

Ta

Dm

[dancingmatt]

UPDATE - I have a Hitachi 7K250 SATA drive and I can't change the AAM setting on it with my P5W DH-Deluxe motherboard (which has AI Quiet, even though I have that disabled). I use Hitachi Feature Tool, it lets me change the AAM setting but upon reboot it resets it again.

So as suspected, if you have an Asus board with AI Quiet onboard, you can't manually set AAM levels for any of your hard drives, Western Digital or other brands.

The question then is whether the WD5000AAKS is quiet enough as it is...

DM

[CrazyMonkey]

The question then is whether the WD5000AAKS is quiet enough as it is...

I expect the drive is quiet at stock, if not get some rubber gromets or something.

In my experience these drives are quiet

And yes the Asus AI Quiet does disable the AAM

[aidanjt]

I'm able to set it in Linux. The AAM feature is stored and managed at the drive level, the motherboard can't interfer with it's operation.

[amjedm]

I setup one of the 250GB ones (same model) for a relative in a Dell computer when his Maxtor failed. I could hear the seeks IIRC. Didn't change any settings.

[dancingmatt]

Don't think the Dell cases are specifically designed for noise dampening or anything though? I have an Antec P180b and will be mounting two drives on the rubber grommets it comes with in the lower drive cage, so I guess it's going to be fine.

Something about Asus AI Quiet motherboards does definitely interfere with the AAM setting, Linux or not - Asus confirmed it themselves I think.

DM

[amjedm]

Don't think the Dell cases are specifically designed for noise dampening or anything though? DM

It did have a 6800 GPU from what I can remember and the HD wasn't the noisiest thing (in idle mode).

I would like to try one of the 250 drives - ones available from ebuyer have had bad reviews lately so could be a bad batch but the price is around £35 so not bad.

[luca.negri]

No!! does Asus have an explanation and/or workaround for this?

I have an Asus P5K-E in a Zalman 160HD case with 2 WD500AAKS drives.
Everything is almost noiseless, no vibrations etc. but when the hard disks seek they are awfully loud!!
I'm not sure what reviewers measure when they say these drives are quiet... I mean the rotation sound (whisper) is almost null but the seek noise is much more evident than on all previous Hitachi drives I've owned...

So I though (as I've always done on all my hard drives) ok I'll enable AAM.
And I must say although still audible the drives were way quieter during the seek test with aam enabled (in the Hitachi feature tool).
But bad surprise... after reboot back to the starting point...

I will try to contact Asus' customer support.

[twicksisted]

I have 4 WD3200 RE16 (Western Digital Caviar 320gig) in Raid 0...
They on an Asus P5K-E in a NZXT Lexa case and are completely quiet!

I use my box for music production and the only noisy part is the retail fan on the CPU...
I think if you havent got the drive installed with silicon grommets between the HDD and the metal case, youll get some resonance.

For a quieter drive try the samsung spinpoints... They in my other rig and they are almost completely inaudible!

[luca.negri]

Interesting... the Zalman case came with rubber pads already installed in all HD bays, it should be more than enough! I will try to look for the silicon ones... maybe the rest of the pc is so silent that the hd seek noise annoys me!
But regardless of that, I found it really bad that the major motherboard supplier in the world has built such a flaw into their newest products!

Thanks anyway!