Samsung HM040HI noise problem

Tinus · Post by **Tinus** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:45 pm

I have a thinkpad notebook (Z60-2529 EPG) and I recently bought myself a Samsung HM040HI 40 B single platter, s-ata.
This was a big relief in idle noise!! (compared to the idle noise of the sata 80 GB Toshiba)

BUT: there is a spin up - spin down noise. Moreover: the drive doesn't spin down after the Power Management period. I had these same problems with a Hitachi 5k100. (before the Toshiba)
The Toshiba drive didn't have these problems though. It shuts down, it has no pulsing spin up/down noise....but had a too loud hissss sound.

WHAT's GOING ON ???

I tried all the settings. In Bios, Power management, disabling it all.
I also used a tool of samsung (HUTIL) and tried all the settings of the Acoustic Managment (even disabled it). I even set the SATA- mode back to UDMA133. This all reduced overall idle spinning noise, but the spin-down/up issue...It's driving me grazy. Also tried the Notebook Hardware Control utility...nothing helped. No total spin-down and a pulsing noise. Even when I'm doing nothing for 30 minutes!

This is the samsung spin-up /down noise (used internal mic, so please turn up the volume a bit). http://home.wanadoo.nl/vanderwijst/soun ... M040HI.wav

Anyone recognizes this (parking spin up/down) noise?

Tinus

kentc · Post by **kentc** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:25 pm

(douh, i just saw this thread after i responded to your older post)

i have the same problem with and old hitachi 12gb in my old armada m700. i read on the compaq forum that it was a local problem affecting that particular model laptop and hdd chip logics. coming in and out of standby irregularly, making loads of noise while doing so. maybe local problem for you too? any chance of upgrading bios on laptop? upgrade hdd driver in xp?

regards, kent.

Tinus · Post by **Tinus** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:31 am

Bios is up to date. But I will try to flash it anyway, just in case.
Couldn't find any firmware at all for the drive. Maybe it's hidden in the vaults of Samsungs website?

I thought maybe Xp could be the problem. But, booting in Dos-mode for the samsung tool gives a simular problem. Maybe I give Linux a try.
To be honoust, don't no what to do at the moment.

kentc · Post by **kentc** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:31 am

booting linux and "hdparm -y /dev/hdXY" should be the cleanest way?shut down syslogd aswell so it wont constantly try to spin up and make writes.
i must tell you though that on the troublesome armada i spoke of, linux/hdparm does produce the same result as xp

kent.

Tinus · Post by **Tinus** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:00 am

Hi Kent,

I installed linux (Ubuntu) and tried the hdparm -255 -B /dev/sda
I get an error: HDIO_DRIVE_CMD fialed: Input/Output error

The samsung drive doesn't support Advanced Power Management in the NHC tool neither (windows). So probrably this is not working for my drive.
Are there other linux options I could use?

kentc · Post by **kentc** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:41 pm

Tinus wrote:Hi Kent,
I installed linux (Ubuntu) and tried the hdparm -255 -B /dev/sda
I get an error: HDIO_DRIVE_CMD fialed: Input/Output error

i hope you mean you typed:
root@ubuntu:~$ hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda
be a bit careful with hdparm, it's a very powerfull tool and the wrong commands could screw up your disk. -B 255 should disable all builtin apm features, -M 254 should turn off aam, automatic acoustic management, -S 0 should set "never spin down disk when idle", -Z is supposedly only for some seagate drives but claims to stop them "idling/spinning-down at inconvenient times" - use at own risk i guess then...

hope any of this helps?!

Tinus · Post by **Tinus** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:13 am

Hi Kentc,

Sorry for this late reply, but samsung already gave me the solution.
After the linux-installation I became a bit desperate and low-formatted the HDD and contacted Samsung about my problem. So I didn't try the other hdparm commands.

However, Samsung helped me out with this. The sended me a patch/tool with which I was able to 'activate' the APM features of the HDD.

and there was the SOLUTION !!

Disabling APM settings did help. The headparking sound stopped.
After running the tool I was also able to adapt the APM settings with Notebook Hardware Control. Maximize the APM settings did reduce the noise. After enabling 'spin-down' the noise came back.

So it really was an APM problem.

which I couldn't change before using the patch/tool of Samsung.

kentc · Post by **kentc** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:40 am

glad to hear it's fine now! this patch you speak of, is it available openly on samsungs homepage (url?) or do you have to request it?

best regards, kent.

Tinus · Post by **Tinus** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:49 am

Hi Kent,

As far as I know it isn't available on the website. Maybe they put it there in the meanwhile. I recieved it over the mail and it didn't look like a 'regular consumer tool'.

Martijn