WD640AAKS Noisy?

[Maccer101]

Installed Vista 64 on a new build last night, using a Western Digital 640AAKS hard drive.

Now the drive seems really noisy when its being accessed, which with Vista is alot of the time.

I cannot hear the Samsung drive in Vista machine at all and neither can I hear the 250gb WD drive in my Ubuntu machine.

Are the WD640AAKS a bit noisy or could this be a potential problem? I left the PC on overnight and it was still running this morning.

Should I give it a few days running in to see how it goes?

Is it worth trying the Hitachi AAM tool?

[vinnyT]

I have 2 of these drives, and have not noticed any problems with noise.

It may be worth going to Wds site and dloading the diagnostic sware, which may ( or may not) be able to tell you if you have a faulty drive. If the sware does tell you of an error, make a note of it, so you can tell your supplier when/if asking for an rma.

[Emirzan]

That model of drive is known for being one of the quietest hard disk drives around. Diagnostic software would be my first port of call but also check that it's securely mounted in your case. If a screw is loose the high speed vibrations of the drive will make it rattle pretty loudly.

[arthurleung]

Since you're not loading the Samsung drive, of course you can't hear any seaking noise.
You could perhaps try downloading some tools to modify the AAM setting on the WD drive to quiet it down. It is defaulted to maximum performance which could be a bit noisy.

[Maccer101]

Sorry for the confusion. the Samsung is in another Vista machine as the OS drive, and its silent.

I will re-check the HDD in the case
Run a diagnostic
perhaps tinker with AAM

then wil go from there

[arthurleung]

Sorry for the confusion. the Samsung is in another Vista machine as the OS drive, and its silent.

I will re-check the HDD in the case
Run a diagnostic
perhaps tinker with AAM

then wil go from there

Well, it also depends on your case, e.g. case panel sound-proof, rubber mounting.

Sort of like the same harddrive sounds a lot louder in my Eclipse 62 compared to P180.
Unless you compare them in the same case there is no comparison.

[Maccer101]

Drive is silent now, had it on all last night and no noise? Maybe its first few hours are noisy or something. I will keep listening....

[LuckyNV]

Drive is silent now, had it on all last night and no noise? Maybe its first few hours are noisy or something. I will keep listening....

Vista thrashes the HDD for its searching cache feature, but even with AAM off the AAKS is a very quiet drive under full access, unlike my Seagates which are easily audible and definitely no where near the level of my Raptor.

One thing you must distinguish, is it drive access noise or is it vibration resonance/humming from the case mounting.

[acrobat]

My hard drive sounded like a bag of bolts until I took it out of the little disk drive cage inside my case. It seems the noise is all from the case rattling with the vibration. The trick for me was to unscrew the drive cage completely and have it resting on some foam, and then I wedged something in above it to hold it in place. There metal cage is now not touching anything else metal, so the vibration is completely gone

Some people do a similar thing by suspending it by hanging it from string or wires or whatever. My guess is your problem was similar to that, and it might have just vibrated itself into a position where it can't vibrate anymore. Or it could have just been Vista doing it's black magic.