Any cheaper retail solutions to quiet the Raptor down?

fyleow · Post by **fyleow** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 5:12 pm

I just purchased a Raptor 150 gb to replace my Seagate 160gb 7200.7 as my OS hard drive. The Raptor is great when it's idling but the seek noise is pretty bad. I don't mind it when I'm gaming but it happens sometimes during web browsing too.

I've been looking at ways to quiet the seek noise and I've found a lot of DIY solutions or pretty expensive enclosures. I'm currently using the Antec P180 so it does have at least rubber grommets but they don't work too well.

Is the Scythe Anti Vibration Stabilizer or the Nexus Disk Twin worth getting? Is it going to be a noticable improvement over the stock Antec mounting?[/url]

nici · Post by **nici** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 5:39 pm

IF you mount the drives in the P180 correctly without overtightening the grommets they will work much better than those things.

An enclosure that eliminates seeks from a raptor isnÂ´t possible, or at least itÂ´s very hard to make and huge in size.

An enclosure will mute the seeks but you would most likely still be able to hear them.

Personally i dont find seek noise annoying at all, just idle noise. A raptor seeking 20cm from my head is ok, a 2,5" laptop drive idling at 1m is way too noisy.

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 6:11 pm

fyleow wrote:I'm currently using the Antec P180 so it does have at least rubber grommets but they don't work too well.

Is your Raptor in the upper or lower hard drive chamber?

I once had mine in the upper chamber to test for temperature differences, and found the seeks to be louder there. In fact, I even tried it in the 5 1/4" bay in elastic suspension and still found the seek noises to be louder.

My drive sounds the best in the bottom chamber, with the screws tightened only as much as necessary.

nici · Post by **nici** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 7:45 pm

Oh, i tested a 80gig WD in the upper chambr once. As soon as i put the hdd in there the noise was at least tripled! Compared to the lower chamber or free air. Something similar to the seagate drive in an spcr test here it became much louder if one side was close to a hard surface, but this was far worse..

fyleow · Post by **fyleow** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 7:49 pm

I have all my drives mounted on the lower chamber because of temperature concerns. I noticed without a fan my drives were idling around 50c in both the upper and lower chambers. After moving all the hard drives down to the lower area and setting the fan on low the raptor is about 41 C now.

I'll try to loosen the screws a bit.

nici I was thinking of getting the Scythe Quiet Drive you posted about. Do you think it's worth the money? Can it mount on the P180 because the case has sliding mounts for the CD-rom slots? I'm also worried about temperatures since I can't put a fan if I mount it in the CD-Rom area.

nici · Post by **nici** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 8:03 pm

If you have several drives and they are all on, i wouldnÂ´t bother with an enclosure. It will make one drive quieter but the others wil be just as loud. If your other HDDs spin down aand are rarely on, it could be a good idea.

You said your temps were high in the upper chamber, how are your fans setup? You need to either have both exhausts blowing out or just one and the other taped shut to get any airflow in the front of the case. taping the VGA duct is usually also a good idea.

Im asking because if your othr HDDs spin down, ou could mount hem in the upper chamber and put an enclosed Raptor in the lower chamber and have a slow hfan there.

fyleow · Post by **fyleow** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 8:18 pm

I have 3 other hard drives but they are rarely accessed and used more for just plain storage.

If the enclosure will help with seek noise I think it will be worth it.

I have the back exhaust fan (Tricool on low) with the top exhaust closed off with a heavy notebook on top. I didn't tape up the VGA ducts though.

How do you spin down hard drives?

EDIT: NM I think I found it, it's under power options and it's set to 20 minutes before hard drives are turned off.

nici · Post by **nici** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 8:59 pm

Your system HD will never spin down but the others should. If you only access them a couple times a day setting it to 3 mintues is a good idea, if you use them more often its better to set a longer time because the drives donÂ´t like to spin down and up again every few mintues

The scythe enclosure will help with seek noise, but it wont make the raptor completely inaudible.The seeks will be softer and slightly less noisy, the enclosures generally reduce idle noise much better than seeks.

So it will give a slight improvemt on seek noise, but donÂ´t expect miracles in that department

fyleow · Post by **fyleow** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:12 pm

Ok maybe I will just pass on the enclosure for now, it is kind of pricey at $35 + shipping. The raptor's idle noise is not bad at all just the seek noise can be a little annoying. Only when the ambient noise is really low like at night with the windows and doors shut though.

So would you say the P180's mounting does a good job of quieting the drives already? I'm guessing the seek noise can't be helped much and the noise dampening of the case is more important here.

JimX · Post by **JimX** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:58 pm

Be careful with (too) loose screws on the drives. Last week I found two of them in the bottom of my P180, luckily from different drives.

nici · Post by **nici** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 4:52 am

For vibration the stock mounting is nearly as good as suspension, provided you have the screws loose enough.

I usually tightened them just with my fingers, gently pushed the drive against the grommet and tightened juut so the screw hit the grommet. Never had any screws come loose.

Though i suppose you could put some blue loc-tite on the treads or a tiny drop of superglue or hotglue on the screw and grommet to stop them from rattling open...

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 11:00 am

One thing I thought about doing was to add some "tube spacers" to the screws, which would allow you to tighten the screws, but they would tighten just as they touch the grommet. But I never bothered since the finger tightening method seems to work fine...

peter2679 · Post by **peter2679** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:01 pm

i have owned a raptor a long time and can tell you those seek noises are as annoying as hell. i currently have the drive in a cooldrive 3 enclosure to which a have disabled the little whiny fan. i think coolermaster made this enclosure and can say that the seeks were cut at least in half. without the enclosure there is no way i'd keep the drive. but to tell you the truth the seeks are still too loud. last night out of nowhere avg decided to scan my computer for viruses and it woke me up. i let it go for about ten seconds but there is no way i could sleep with that noise. the enclosure is made of aluminum and the raptor doesn't overheat. i have never seen the temp (speedfan) go over 40 degrees even at when it's being accessed continuously.

Any cheaper retail solutions to quiet the Raptor down?

Any cheaper retail solutions to quiet the Raptor down?

Re: Any cheaper retail solutions to quiet the Raptor down?

i'm using a cooldrive 3