Winchester is humming. Noisy and cracking hard drive under load. What can be done? Why is the hard drive cracking

A hard drive, also known as a "hard drive", is an important component of any computer. It has not only operating system, but important documents and files (music, video, photos) are also stored. Like any other component, over time it wears out and fails. And the main symptom of this is the appearance of noise and buzzing of the hard drive. In this case, the first thing to do is to avoid a sharp breakdown.

However, this may not always be the reason. An increased noise level also occurs with new drives of some manufacturers and models, and this is their normal operating condition.

Below we will consider several options for reducing the noise of a hard drive: manually and programmatically.

AAM

Newer HDDs support the special function " Automatic Acoustic Management”, with its help you can adjust the speed of movement of the reading heads, due to which the noise of the laptop hard drive will decrease.

Default given function is disabled, so we use a utility called "WinAAM" to enable it, it's free and very lightweight. You can find and download it on the Internet.

I want to draw your attention to the fact that after setting the quiet mode, the speed of the drive also decreases. However, it is very difficult to see this by eye.

CrystalDiskInfo

If for some reason the previous program did not suit you or did not help, HDD still noisy under load and because of this, then I recommend using this utility. With its help, we will more flexibly configure the AAM function. But it has other useful features, for example, you can view detailed HDD parameters, current status, and check for errors.

So what's to be done:

After that, the hard drive will start working with the new settings in quiet mode.

There may be several reasons why there may be several reasons for CrystalDiskInfo:

• The HDD is old and the utility simply does not support it
• Physical or logical failure

How to diagnose the HDD, it was said at the beginning of the article.

defragmentation

Another way that can help you if the hard drive of a laptop or computer makes a lot of noise or buzzes during operation. As mentioned above, this is due to the moving mechanical heads, or rather their speed.

To do this, we will reduce the distance that they need to overcome in order to get to the desired section of the disk and read information from it. This is done quite simply, using the usual defragmentation. It will arrange clusters with information in order, reduce the distance between them, thereby increasing the speed of access to them. Simply put, it will be easier for the hard drive to read the necessary information, the load on it will decrease, and then the noise and buzz of the hard drive will decrease.

But you can also use the utility built into the system.:

Thus, we will get rid of the buzz and buzz of the drive.

Manual way

If you have a desktop computer and not a laptop, you can use one of the methods below.

Now you know what to do when the hard drive starts making third-party sounds during operation (noise, buzzing and buzzing) and you can solve this problem yourself using the methods discussed above.

While working at the computer, many users have noticed noise. It can be created by both a cooler, a video card, and a hard drive. However, the noise from the hard drive is different from other sounds that come from the system unit or the bottom of the laptop. Noise hard drive more like crack. It appears when you copy large files or play a game. If earlier your PC worked stably and there were no extraneous noises, and now the hard drive is cracking, you should copy all the important information from it and check it.

Get rid of hard drive crash

If your hard drive is cracking, there are two ways to fix this problem:

• Reduced head positioning speed (since they crack);
• Reliable fixation of the hard drive inside the system unit.

Each hard drive has an option such as Automatic Acoustic Management. It is responsible for the speed of rotation of the magnetic heads of the hard drive. It is impossible to change its parameters and reduce the data reading speed with the usual settings. Requires a special program. You can find many of these on the Internet. QuietHDD software is popular. However, it is worth warning that by reducing the speed of rotation of the heads, the speed of reading information decreases. The disk starts to slow down. This is a negative factor. Here you have to choose: speed or working hard drive.

We remove the crackle of the hard drive using quietHDD in the following way. Download and run the utility as Administrator.

Open the "AAM Settings" tab. We move the sliders to the minimum position, reduce from 256 to 128 revolutions. Then click "Accept" and "OK".

In order not to run this utility every time before starting to use programs and applications, it is worth adding it to the system startup.

If you are the owner of a PC, not a laptop, the hard drive must be securely fixed in the system unit. You can do this in three ways:

1. Bolt fastening. Often, the hard drive is attached with just two bolts, although there are more connectors. In the "sled" the disk "feels" freely and because of this creates a crackle and noise. It is worth stretching the device and securely fasten the hard drive to all the bolts.

1. Use of pads. Soft rubberized pads dampen noise and vibration. You can buy them or cut them yourself and install them at the point of contact between the disk and the system unit. However, the material should not be too large so as not to interfere with the ventilation of the disc.

1. Mounting with twisted pair. Usually, 3-4 small pieces of wire are used for this purpose and fastened as if the disk were located in the sled. However, in this case, it will be difficult to move the body. There is a risk of damaging the device.

Using the above methods, you can fix the hard drive so that it does not make noise or crack.

I think that users, especially those who are not the first day at the computer, pay attention to suspicious noises from the computer (laptop). The noise of the hard drive is usually different from other noises (reminiscent of crackling) and occurs when it is heavily loaded - for example, you copy a large file or download information from a torrent. This noise is annoying to many, and in this article I would like to tell you how you can reduce the level of such crackling.

By the way, right at the beginning I would like to say this. Not all models of hard drives are noisy.

If your device has not previously made noise, and now it has begun, I recommend it to you. In addition, when noise appears that has never happened before - first of all do not forget to copy all important information to other media, this can be a bad sign.

If you always had such a noise in the form of a cod- it means that this is the normal operation of your hard disk, because it is still a mechanical device and magnetic disks are constantly rotating in it. There are two methods of dealing with such noise: fixing or mounting the hard drive in the device case so that there is no vibration and resonance; the second method is to reduce the speed of positioning the reading heads (they just crackle).

1. How can I fix the hard drive in the system unit?

By the way, if you have a laptop, you can immediately go to the second part of the article. The fact is that in a laptop, as a rule, nothing can be invented, tk. devices inside the case are located very compactly and you can no longer put any gaskets.

If you have a normal system unit, there are three main options that are used in such cases.

1) Firmly fix the hard drive in the system unit case. Sometimes, the hard drive is not even bolted to the mount, it is simply located on the "sled", because of this, noise is made during operation. Check if it is well fixed, stretch the bolts, often, if it is attached, then not on all the bolts.

2) You can use special soft pads that dampen vibration and thus suppress noise. By the way, such gaskets can be made by yourself, from some piece of rubber. The only thing is, don't make them too big - they shouldn't interfere with the ventilation around the hard drive case. It is enough that these gaskets will be at the points of contact between the hard drive and the case of the system unit.

3) You can hang the hard drive inside the case, for example, on a network cable (twisted pair). Usually, small 4 pieces of wire are used and fastened with them so that the hard drive is located in the same way as if it were mounted on a sled. The only thing, with such a mount, you need to be very careful: move the system unit carefully and without sudden movements - otherwise you risk hitting the hard drive, and the blows end badly for it (especially when the device is turned on).

2. Reduction of crackling and noise due to the speed of positioning the block with heads (Automatic Acoustic Management)

There is one option in the hard drive, which by default does not appear anywhere - you can change it only with the help of special utilities. We are talking about Automatic Acoustic Management (or AAM for short).

If you do not go into complex technical details, then the point is to reduce the speed of movement of the heads, thereby reducing crackling and noise. But at the same time, the speed of the hard drive also decreases. But, in this case - you will extend the life of the hard drive by an order of magnitude! Therefore, you have to choose - either noise and high speed, or noise reduction and longer operation of your disk.

By the way, I want to say that by reducing the noise on my Acer laptop - I could not evaluate the speed of work "by eye" - it works the same as before!

So. There are special utilities for regulating and configuring AAM (I talked about one of them in). We are talking about a simple and convenient utility - quietHDD ().

You need to run it as an administrator. Next, go to the AAM Settings section and move the sliders from 256 to 128. After that, click Apply for the settings to take effect. Actually, after that, you should immediately notice a reduction in cod.

By the way, in order not to run this utility again every time you turn on the computer, add it to startup. For Windows 2000, XP, 7, Vista - you can simply copy the utility shortcut to the start menu in the startup folder.

That's all. All the successful work of the hard drive, and, most importantly, quiet. 😛

According to statistics, every second HDD stops working after about 6 years, but practice shows that after 2-3 years work hard disk may malfunction. One of the common problems is the situation when the drive cracks or even beeps. Even if this was noticed only once, certain measures should be taken to protect against possible data loss.

A working hard drive should not have any extraneous sounds during operation. It makes some noise, resembling a buzz, when information is being written or read. For example, when downloading files, running programs in the background, updating, launching games, applications, etc. There should be no knocks, clicks, squeaks and cod.

If the user observes sounds unusual for the hard drive, it is very important to find out the cause of their occurrence.

Checking the status of the hard drive

Often, a user who runs the HDD health diagnostic utility can hear clicks that the device makes. This is not dangerous, because in this way the drive can simply mark the so-called bad sectors.

If the rest of the time there are no clicks or other sounds, the operating system is stable and the speed of the HDD itself has not dropped, then there is no reason to worry.

Switching to power saving mode

If you have turned on the power saving mode, and when the system goes into it, you hear the clicks of the hard drive, then this is normal. If you turn off the corresponding settings, clicks will no longer appear.

Power outages

Power surges can also cause the hard drive to click, and if the problem is not observed the rest of the time, then everything is in order with the drive. Notebook users may also experience various unusual HDD sounds when running on battery power. If the clicks disappear when the laptop is connected to the network, then the battery may be defective and should be replaced with a new one.

Overheat

For various reasons, the hard drive may overheat, and a sign of this condition will be various non-standard sounds that it makes. How to understand that the disk is overheating? This usually happens under load, for example, during games or long-term recording on the HDD.

In this case, it is necessary to measure the temperature of the drive. This can be done using the HWMonitor or AIDA64 programs.

Other signs of overheating are freezing of programs or the entire OS, a sudden reboot, or a complete shutdown of the PC.

Consider the main causes of high HDD temperature and how to eliminate it:

Servo marking damage

At the production stage, servo marks are recorded on the HDD, which are necessary for synchronizing the rotation of the disks and the correct positioning of the heads. Servo marks are rays that start from the center of the disk itself and are located at the same distance from each other. Each of these labels stores its number, its place in the synchronization chain and other information. This is necessary for the stable rotation of the disk and the accurate determination of its areas.

A servo label is a collection of servo labels, and when it is damaged, some area of ​​the HDD cannot be read. The device will then try to read the information, and this process will be accompanied not only by long delays in the system, but also by a loud knock. In this case, the disk head knocks, which tries to access the damaged servo.

This is a very complex and serious breakdown in which the HDD can work, but not 100%. You can fix the damage only with the help of a servowriter, that is, low-level formatting. Unfortunately, there are no programs for this that offer a real “low level format”. Any such utility can only create the appearance of low-level formatting. The thing is that the formatting itself at a low level is carried out by a special device (servowriter), which applies servo markup. As already clear, no program can perform the same function.

Cable deformation or defective connector

In some cases, the cause of the clicks may be the cable through which the drive is connected. Check its physical integrity - whether it is interrupted, whether both plugs are tightly held. If possible, replace the cable with a new one and check the quality of work.

Also inspect the connectors for dust and debris. If possible, connect the hard drive cable to a different connector on the motherboard.

Wrong position of the hard drive

Sometimes the snag lies just in the wrong installation of the disk. It must be bolted very tightly and must be located exclusively horizontally. If you put the device at an angle or do not fix it, then the head during operation can cling and make sounds like clicks.

By the way, if there are several disks, it is best to mount them at a distance from each other. This will help them to cool better and eliminate the possible appearance of sounds.

physical breakdown

A hard drive is a very fragile device, and it is afraid of any impacts such as falls, shocks, strong shocks, vibrations. This is especially true for laptop owners - mobile computers, due to the negligence of users, more often than stationary ones fall, hit, withstand heavy weights, shaking and other adverse conditions. One day this can lead to drive failure. Usually, in this case, the disk heads break, and their recovery can be performed by a specialist.

Ordinary HDDs that are not subjected to any manipulations can also fail. It is enough for a particle of dust to get inside the device under the writing head, as this can cause creaking or other sounds.

You can determine the problem by the nature of the sounds emitted by the hard drive. Of course, this does not replace a qualified examination and diagnosis, but it can be useful:

• Damage to the HDD head - a few clicks are emitted, after which the device starts to work more slowly. Also, with a certain frequency, sounds that continue for some time may occur;
• The spindle is faulty - the disk starts to start, but in the end this process is interrupted;
• Bad sectors - there may be unreadable areas on the disk (on physical level that cannot be eliminated by software methods).

What to do if the clicks cannot be fixed on your own

In some cases, the user cannot not only get rid of clicks, but also diagnose their cause. There are only two options for how to do it:

1. Buying a new HDD. If the problematic hard drive is still working, then you can try to clone the system with all user files. In fact, you will only replace the media itself, and all your files and OS will work as before.

   If this is not yet possible, you can at least save the most important data to other sources of information storage: USB-flash, cloud storage, external HDD, etc.

2. Contacting a specialist. Repairing physical damage to hard drives is very costly and usually does not make sense. Especially when it comes to standard hard drives (installed in a PC at the time of purchase) or bought independently for little money.

   However, if there is very important information on the disk, then the specialist will help to “get” it and copy it to a new HDD. With a pronounced problem of clicks and other sounds, it is recommended to contact professionals who can recover data using software and hardware systems. Independent actions can only aggravate the situation and lead to the complete loss of files and documents.

We have analyzed the main problems due to which the hard drive can click. In practice, everything is very individual, and in your case a non-standard problem may arise, for example, a jammed engine.

Finding out for yourself what caused the clicks can be very difficult. If you do not have sufficient knowledge and experience, we advise you to contact specialists or purchase and install a new hard drive yourself.

HDD, aka hard drive - makes noise, clicks and creaks. Why and what can be done.

Most HDD noise has sound waves in the range of 1 - 3 kHz and consists of noise from two different sources.

This is the noise of a hard drive generated by the rotation of its spindle and the friction of mechanical parts directly inside the hard drive. This noise can only be reduced by modifying the components of the hard drive.

Most of all, we hear noise caused by the vibration of the hard drive inside the computer case. This, in turn, consists of vibration from the rotation of the spindle, as well as vibration from the read / write heads, which accelerate and decelerate many times per second.

Clicks in the HDD, for example, are emitted by the positioner, at the moment of impact on the limiter. A working hard drive may make clicks due to the so-called thermal calibration, when the hard drive, in response to an increase in the temperature of the case and components, reinitializes the read / write head positioning system.

In addition, the hard drive also clicks from a bad, "rattling" or unstable power supply, when the heads go into the parking area and the HDD electronics restarts. Another reason why a working screw clicks may be putting the hard drive into sleep mode, and if such settings are explicitly specified in the system's power saving properties, then a similar effect can occur quite often. It makes sense to mention the offline scanning of the disk surface as one of the reasons why the HDD clicks. True, in this case, extraneous sounds from the hard drive will be due to bad sectors (bad blocks) of the hard drive, which off-line scanning tries to replace or exclude from the broadcast.

What to do?

Simply put, there are two ways to reduce the volume of sounds emitted by a hard drive - fix them in the case using soft fasteners that prevent the transfer of vibration from the hard drive to the case and use the Automatic Acoustic Management function.

"Squeak" - is it the rattling of the screw during operation or a constant hum? If the latter, then most likely a resonance. Tighten or tighten the hard drive mount. What if there are two? The screws one by one work silently, and together in the same case - the hum is worth it. We advise you to turn one of the screws upside down so that the rotation is in different directions. Turned over. The sound has decreased by 80%. It means it.

Not everyone knows that the user can change the characteristics of the hard drive using the acoustic control function, which allows you to modify data access profiles (access patterns) and change the default hard drive mode (fast) to quiet mode.

Run a utility like HD Tune Pro, enable AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) and put it in silent mode.

Download the Victoria program and use it to adjust the noise level of the hard drive (the noise is reduced by reducing the spindle speed).

Everyone has hard drives, based on UltraATA/100 and Serial ATA interfaces, there is an automatic acoustic control (AAM) function, but you need special software tools to access it and be able to change its settings.

Sounds with a frequency of 1 kHz to 3 kHz are characterized by the greatest susceptibility, so noise reduction at these frequencies is more effective than at other frequencies. This is where acoustic control technology comes from.

Most of the sound waves in the range from 1 to 3 kHz consist of noise from two different sources. Firstly, this is the noise of the hard drive, generated by the rotation of its spindle and the friction of the mechanical parts directly inside the hard drive. This noise can only be reduced by modifying the components of the hard drive. But most of all we hear the noise caused by the vibration of the hard drive inside the computer case. This, in turn, consists of vibration from the rotation of the spindle, as well as vibration from the read / write heads, which accelerate and decelerate many times per second.

The fastest way to move the heads is to accelerate them to the middle of the path towards the new track and then decelerate the remainder of the path (so-called two-position search). There are many options for modifying this operation, ranging from the modification of acceleration and deceleration, as well as the required switching power. Adding Native Command Queuing here, which analyzes and reorders all incoming commands to find the most efficient order of read and write requests, helps reduce the amount of head movement, which can reduce access time and noise.

Now let's move on to analyzing the situation when the hard drive knocks due to a malfunction. As a rule, in this case, the positioning system, for one reason or another, is not able to receive signals from the hard disk heads, indicating that the head "sees" the servo markup. In this case, the hard drive creaks, whistles, knocks or makes other soul-exciting sounds. The actuator moves the block of heads across the entire available amplitude, hence the entire set. The HDD knocks even if there was a failure during the firmware loading process and it hung, preventing the processor from controlling the giblets of the screw. In all cases, when a hard drive knocks, qualified diagnostics are needed to determine the causes and develop an action strategy to successfully recover data from a knocking hard drive.

Winchester creaks or HDD makes noise.