getting rid of seek noise?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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boardsportsrule
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getting rid of seek noise?

Post by boardsportsrule » Sat Oct 02, 2004 6:42 pm

ok, i had 3 seagates, but i got sick of having to go to c: for games d: for movies and e: or somehting for random things. so i got a maxtor...yea ok not the best idea ever, but not the worst.... any ways, its silent except when seeking, when it seeks it gets quite loud, i dont think its vibration noise(correct me if im wrong, as if it is i can easily fix that...) but what kind of noise is it and how can i CHEAPLY get rid of it? cheap is key here. i have access to my highschools work shop which has quite a bit of stuff...please lemme know any methods you know of to get rid of this noise!( i checked in the hdd silencing methods threads, and most of those were vibration noise fixers...)

alleycat
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Post by alleycat » Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:11 pm

All those techniques work extremely well for seek noise also. As a bonus you will find that your drive is quieter both while at idle and while seeking.

msm_zgok
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Post by msm_zgok » Sat Oct 02, 2004 10:38 pm

If it's not vibration then it's the motor and the only inexpensive way I can think of is to buy a silent HDD (Samsung Spinpoint) and sell the Maxtor to make up for the cost. Nevertheless, you should try suspending the HDDs (sewing elastic is like $1-2).

Ragnarok
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Post by Ragnarok » Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:11 am

Try this, http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxt ... faqid=1200

or try setting the aam in IBM/Hitachi's Feature Tool (v1.94) which you can get at Feature Tool (v1.94).

you can make the seeks quieter but the seek performance won't be quite so good.


Me I just got a bloody maxtor DM10 6B300S0 nice and fast but the seeks out of the box are very noisy. Unfortunatly None of the tools above work. AMset does not support SATA drives and the IBM feature tool detects it then just crashes when i try to select it.

Though Both worked on my old DM9(6Y120P0) which is quite acceptable with AAM set to quiet.

I can see with the smart monitor i'm using in windows that my dm10 is set with aam disabled(set to fastest seeks) and it's recomended value is C0h(medium acoustic emination level).

I want to make this my primary HD but untill i can sort out the AAM I won't want to.
Last edited by Ragnarok on Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

cruelsister
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Post by cruelsister » Sun Oct 03, 2004 5:23 am

Had the same problem at one time with the Seagate and a WD drive. Get yourself a couple of CoolPaks (if you know of anyone in the drug, meat, lab biz you should be able to get them free).

1). remove the drives from the bays.
2). lay a Coolpak eith on the case floor or on the drive bay shelf.
3). lay the HD's on the paks.

The only time you'll hear the drives is when you do something like a defrag, and then it will be very, very mild. Personally, I have 3 drives: the Seagate IV, a WD800JB, and the Seagate 7200.7 SATA. After Coolpaks the noise profile for all the drives are essentially identical. The method is cheap (free is you know someone) and a bunch easier than stringing elastic material, etc.

Theres's a couple of threads about thisif you need further info, or PM if you would prefer.

boardsportsrule
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Post by boardsportsrule » Sun Oct 03, 2004 6:24 am

well, i've suspended drives bfore, so that would be easy, its just im not sure it will help :/...any ways, it just one drive so it will be really easy, and it cannot hurt :) thanks and ill get it goin! :)

boardsportsrule
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Post by boardsportsrule » Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:57 am

well, i did teh aam thing, and set it to quiet, and now i can hardly hear it....ill suspend it and then it SHOULD be gone :) thanks!

Ragnarok
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Post by Ragnarok » Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:34 pm

Yep, with both aam and suspending the drive you should get the results you want.

Also just to add to my last post i found a AAM util that worked on my new sata Diamond max 10. it's called "Abacus HDD Acoustic Manager v1.2.1" but it not new ( you should be able to find it) but it doesn't work on windoze 2000 or xp. but it did in 98.

The result it barly audible seeks. much quieter than even my old diamond max 9.

Lets just say I'm happy now.

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