Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Humming Clicking when Idle

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 11:49 am

My first post, here goes. I have a Seagate Barracuda ATA 7200.7 200GB Hard Drive (ST3200822A).

I recently bought some new quieter components for my PC so that now I can hear the hard drive. I started noticing a clicking noise from the 7200.7. After further analysis I realized this was occuring only when the drive was idle. It creates a loud hum and starts going click, click, click. Sometimes it goes on for a very long time. When the drive undergoes activity, the noise immediately goes away. It's so frustrating to be idle for just a few seconds and have that noise turn up.

When I boot up after unplugging the IDE cable from the drive, while leaving the power cable plugged in, it immediately goes into the humming clicking mode, so it is definitely something that happens when the drive is idle.

Consulting the Seagate website, it said that if you follow the above procedure of disconnecting the data cable while powering up the drive, and there is still an unusual noise, then there is probably something wrong with the drive.

I have promptly RMA'd it, but am still waiting for my replacement. However I read this thread about offline seak noise in the Seagate 7200.7 series drive

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=13900

It links to this site: http://groups.google.dk/groups?q=barrac ... .nl&rnum=4

Very frustrating indeed. When I receive my replacement drive I will post an update as to whether the hum / click idle mode still persists.

I wonder if anyone also has the same problem with Seagate Barracuda (S)ATA 7200.7 series hard drives?

In the meantime I also have a Seagate Barracuda ATA IV which is running very nice. I also have purchased a lot of new components meant to silence my PC lately which I plan on providing opinion / insight on.

Oricom · Post by **Oricom** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 12:40 pm

I bought the same HD last week and noticed it made seek noises when idle. Its very obvious because I have the HD in an external USB case plugged into my laptop which is extremely quiet.

So I came here looking if this was a common problem. Seems like there is nothing I can do about it.

Project · Post by **Project** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:55 pm

what i did to solve mine was just run a program on that drives, so in like my case, i had 2 off them clicking when idle. so i can mirc on one drive and had it log the channel conversations and ther other drive si where i bit torrent all the time. ergo both drives are doing some small work that keeps them from idle =)

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:17 pm

I have only heard clicking noises during seek, not during idle. They are very faint, even with watercooling. I would much prefer slight clicking than heavy vibrational seek noise (Maxtors).

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:34 pm

acaurora ... in your sig, what does "Testing APAntecBQE + EXOS Al" mean?

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:38 pm

That means that I have both, and that I am in the process of testing both products for the purposes of silencing my computer while maintaining adequate temperatures.

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:41 pm

Sweet ... Don't know about that EXOS, but I'm wondering where you picked up the Acoustipack BQE?

Thanks.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:44 pm

I am currently reviewing a sample sent by me to AcoustiProducts, in which I will review it concurrently with the EXOS Al and thus show how even watercooled computers can benefit from acoustic dampening material on the case to silence even the quietest computers (i.e., silence the HDD, fans, PSU, etc) to create one that has adequate temperatures while remaining powerful and quiet

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:14 pm

awesome. hope to see that review soon...

btw on the issue of the Seagate, you probably can't hear it because it's soft mounted in the BQE. If it were hard mounted in a not-so-quiet case it would probably be easier to hear the humming (buzzing) and clicking of the 7200.7. On other sites/threads the buzzing has been described as the buzzing of bees and such, distinct and separate from normal idle noise which is fairly quiet.

I have my replacement drive and it exhibits the same behavior. Even if this behavior is designed to extend the life of the hard drive, it's pretty annoying.

I plan on picking up a Samsung Spinpoint drive next.

jones_r · Post by **jones_r** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 7:42 am

You can read a what a tech support guy from Seagate had to say about the 7200.7's idle sporadic noise, here:

"The latest generation of our high-capacity drives have been programmed to perform regular off-line scans to test the drive's reliability and detect any possible malfunctions while the drive is still relatively new. These tests occur during times of system idle and are programmed to end after a certain number of power-on hours. They will stop after a cumulative amount of time.

We have been hearing from customers that are experiencing the same noise which you mention, while the drive is idle. The noise ends when an application is accessed or the mouse is moved. This is because the off-line scan is interrupted. I understand this noise is different from that to which most customers are accustomed, but it is indeed intentional,contributes to the reliability of the drive, and will end after a certain pre-programmed time.

If you were to exchange the drive for another of the same model, you would experience the same phenomenon. It may be that you would benefit from a program that controls the Automatic Acoustic Management of the drive. There are third-party softwares that will "destroke" the drive. This will end the noise which you hear but will also slow the drive performance somewhat.

I understand the push for a few of users for a quiet PC. Unfortunately most also require high performance. Problem is, you will either get fast and noisy or slow and quiet with the rpms of the drives these days. In addition, you also have a higher temperature that requires better cooling. Typically the best solution is a high quality PC case. In my search to quiet down a old extremely noisy drive, I found a better PC case did the job."

Great, blame it on the PC case...

On a different subject, can anyone with a 7200.7 drive please download this program and tell me if the drive's temperature that it reports is accurate ?.

http://private.peterlink.ru/tochinov/DTemp/DTemp.zip

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:36 am

Weird. I was lying in bed last night reading The Onion when I heard this noise. At first I thought it was something outside, but when I put my ear up to my PC I knew it was my 200GB Seagate. I'm glad it's a new drive and that it will go away. It is annoying though...I wonder how long the specified time-frame is.

Oh well. Back to Cheney haunting the kids at Crystal Lake...

Magic · Post by **Magic** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:39 pm

Okay, has anyone actually:

a) had this clicking noise when the drive was brand new?

b) actually had the drive long enough that the noise has gone away?

It looks like since no one can assure me of a quiet Samsung, this will be my next drive. But I sure would like confirmation that the noise will eventually go away. Not just from Seagate, but from an owner of the drive here.

By the way I just read the google group article, and it doesn't give me much confidence that this will actually end. Maybe someone from silentpcreview can get an official position, including how many hours it lasts?

Mati · Post by **Mati** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 1:18 am

"These tests occur during times of system idle and are programmed to end after a certain number of power-on hours" - now that's weird. My 80GB 7200.7 has been powered up for about 6120 hours (according to smartctl in linux) and it still makes this noise when idle.

Does anyone know how may power-on hours the drive needs to stop these scans?

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:01 am

Can't be 100% sure but my Seagates seem to have stopped doing it. Had some of them for about two years, others for around one.

jacko · Post by **jacko** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:02 am

Interesting thread, I have been wondering what that noise from one of my 7200.7's was for a long time.

My other 7200.7 never makes this noise as far as I can tell, although looking back it might have done it but now gone away (as the Seagate support people seem to suggest...).

Of course the other reason could be that my dog got to the noisy one before me, had a good chew, and broke one of the middle earth pins off!

I was amazed when it still worked after that mauling! Nice one Seagate!

As for not stopping this testing after a certain time, maybe some of these have older firmware with a bug in that keeps resetting the time or something?

wim · Post by **wim** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:36 am

the seagate bumblebee strikes again

my 7200.7 drive is a 160G SATA and the bee hasn't gone away although it's been on for hundreds or thousands of hours..
it would be nice if it does just go away one day (hadn't heard this news before) but i'm really not expecting it.

Edirol · Post by **Edirol** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 2:16 am

I have a 120GB that doesnt' do this.

My 160 and 200 still clicks when idle.

I've had the 120 the longest, but I don't think I recall it ever clicking.

tias · Post by **tias** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 7:49 am

We should start to investigate why certain models do the offline seeks and some don't. Could it be to the revision of the firmware or where its manufactured?

I have owned a 80GB 7200.7 SATA and a 160GB 7200.7 SATA and they act VERY different.

The 80GB had extremely loud seeks and the offline scanning.. Changed it for the 160GB I'm currently using which has (believe it or not) quite pleasing seek noise and never had the offline scanning..

There must be a pattern.. I wonder if the new 7200.8 will be better..

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 8:20 am

I have two 120GB Seagate SATA drives. One of them makes the annoying noise. The other doesn't. I've had the drives a long time, especially the buzzing one but it's also the system drive so the idle time it gets could be significantly less than the other one. Maybe the other one also buzzed but my PC wasn't quiet enough then to notice. Still considering the time I had the drives, either it doesn't go away or it's a hell of a long wait.

There is however another difference between the two drives. The buzzing drive is also very noisy when seeking or writing, whereas the other drive is much more pleasant. The two drives have different firmware.

Could people start dropping firmware revisions and disk models here so we can see if there's a pattern?

Any SATA control program will read off the firmware numbers.

Here's mine:

Seagate ST3120026AS, Firmware: 3.05, buzzing, noisy
Seagate ST3120026AS, Firmware: 3.18, quiet

wim · Post by **wim** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:18 pm

Seagate 7200.7 ST3160023AS firmware 3.05 - bee
Seagate 7200.7 ST340014A firmware 3.04 - no bee

all my other drives are Barracuda IV's, nice and quiet

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:27 pm

"I understand the push for a few of users for a quiet PC. "

A few?

tias · Post by **tias** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 1:20 am

7200.7 SATA 160GB - ST3160023AS - Firmware 3.05

Quiet seeks, and no "self-check bee-sound".. This feels very wierd when looking back to other users posts about this firmware..

I don't know what firmware my old 80GB had but it was BIG difference from my current one noise-wise.

I would like to see more results..

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 1:36 am

7200.7 PATA 40GB - ST340014A - Firmware 3.06
I have three of them. One has a bee (and that is the only sound that Hush makes). One I can't hear 'cause it is suspended inside a dampened case. One is not in use.

Mati · Post by **Mati** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 6:48 am

7200.7 ATA 80GB (ST380011A, firmware 3.06). buzzing when idle. also has somewhat loud seeks, but suspending takes care of that.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 9:02 am

For me, the buzzing has stopped but the drives are still far from silent. Mine are suspended with elastic, but I can still hear them. Perhaps it's because I have six in one computer...

The noise is a low frequency sound a bit like a fan. It's quite soft. I was thinking of getting Silentmaxx enclosures to kill the noise, and I wonder if they would help with the buzzing too. Sadly they cost almost as much as the drives themselves. £24 is the cheapest I have seen them on eBay - and I'd need 6 (£144!)

Network Attached Storage seems to be the best solution. A mobo with gigabit ethernet and 64-bit PCI would be ideal.

GentleGiant · Post by **GentleGiant** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 4:26 pm

With an 80 gig 7200.7 standard ATA (retail boxed drive), the idle clicking went away in one week or so.

atlr · Post by **atlr** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:06 pm

Well, shazbat.

I picked up a ST3200822A , 200GB 7200.7, at CompUSA's Black Friday sale at 1:30AM thank you very much.

And it buzz-saws a (presumably) thermal calibration into my brain every couple minutes. Aaaaargh.

A 120GB Seagate does the same thing but I chalked that up to be because I bought it at a junk sale.

Firmware posting shortly. Are there firmware updates out there.

Even at $30 after rebates, this drive is not worth it if it makes this much racket.

atlr · Post by **atlr** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:24 pm

Seagate ST380011A 80GB FIRMWARE 3.04
quiet

Seagate ST3120022A 120GB FIRMWARE 3.06
annoying and frequent calibrations,

Seagate ST3200822A 200GB FIRMWARE 3.01
even louder and more frequest annoying calibrations,

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 8:39 am

Seagate 7200.7 ST340014A firmware 3.04 - no bee

You must have had yours for quite a while. I've had my ST340014A for over a year and it's still making the bee noise (self-test diagnostic). Personally it's the reason I don't buy Seagate hard drives anymore. It makes no sense to buy a product (for silencing purposes) that produces an irritating noise for an appreciable portion of its useful lifespan.

Rincewind · Post by **Rincewind** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:27 pm

I have a Seagate IDE 200GB and it makes this noise too! Its the reason I wont buy any Segate drives! This drive runs for over 12 months 24/7 and the noise is still there! A few seconds of idle and the noise occurs and doesnt stop! Whats going on Seagate?

Do newer drives still have this?