Noise from harddisk/ comp normal?

[pinkfloyded]

gotten my Dell dimension 9100. after about 20 mins powering up the comp, i notice some noises from the harddisk or comp.. i'm quite sure it's the harddisk tho.. the noises go on and off at times.. particularly when there is activity, there will be noise. i'm really puzzled. is that normal? ironically with my old comp, an intel celeron with only 20gig HD, there was no such problem! and this brand new comp with my current specs is having such noises! Is it normal??

i called the dell tech support (singapore) which that guy said- we can guide you to do a harddisk check to verify if your harddisk is faulty. and if it's not, we can then guide you to adjust the settings to lower or minimum the noise.

my questions are- "we can guide you to do a harddisk check to verify if your harddisk is faulty." is there actually a way i can do a harddisk test on my comp to CONFIRM that my harddisk is totally fine?

- "and if it's not, we can then guide you to adjust the settings to lower or minimum the noise. " There is actually a way to set that noise from th Harddisk in xp?!? will it affect the system's performance?



- Dimension(TM) 9100 Intel(R) Pentium(R) D 830 with Dual Core Technology(3.0GHz)

-2 MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB Intel(R) 945P Chipset

-160GB SATA (7200RPM) Hard Drive

-1GB (2X512) NECC Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz SDRAM Memory

-256MB PCIe(TM) x16 ATI Radeon(TM) X600 HyperMemory(TM) w/TV-Out and DVI

-2X19" UltraSharp(TM) Flat Panel LCD Monitor (Analog & DVI)

-Genuine Windows(R) XP Home Edition(English)

-Genuine Windows(R) XP 32-bit Label

-48X DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive

-48X DVDRW Drive

-Emu 0404 soundcard

-Emu Xboard 49

-Pod XT

-Gibson Les Paul Classic

-Sansamp GT2

-No Floppy Drive and Media Card Reader

-No Floppy Fille

 

[mero]

perhaps it's just the whirring of your hard drive? I wouldn't be surprised considering there are moving and spinning parts inside it......... my old hard drive mp3 player used to have a lot of whirring too, it would make loud noises and vibrate whenever the hard drive was being accessed :lol:

 

[Cheez]

What is the brand of hard-drive? If it makes too much noise, just ask Dell to replace it.

When they say "verify if the HD is faulty", they probably refer to scanning the disk for faulty blocks and sectors. Adjusting settings doesn't minimise the noise, although there are things that can be done to stop the HD from spinning unnecessarily. But it only reduces the frequency of the noises, not the loudness of the noise.

If you're using your PC for home recording, this noise can really affect you and is unacceptable. You should get a quieter drive. That's one reason why I build my own PC and not buy from people like Dell.