This work was submitted to our "unlimited" article competition and the author received an award - a branded T-shirt of the site and a motherboard provided by the Boston PC company.
Introduction
The last bastion of noise when building a quiet computer, as you know, is its hard drive. Component manufacturers have already learned how to make noiseless motherboards, video cards, power supplies, fans. If you have sufficient funds, you can even buy ready-made complete solution Zalman TNN500AF. However, not everyone can afford such a case, and not so much attention is paid to the hard drive in it. The same noise reduction hard drive Several materials on the site have already been devoted to the site:What has changed lately? First, let's see what they offer us on the market. I note that the article will focus only on completely silent devices, coolers with forced air-cooled such as Cooler Master CoolDrive , Spire FlowCooler or Titan TTC will not be considered due to their slightly different purpose. The question was not to cool the hard drive, but to make it less noisy, even at the cost of an increase in temperature. Installing a cooler is contrary to the task.
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Serial HDD coolers
Scythe SBX-1000
One of the popular devices for suppressing hard drive noise from the rapidly gaining popularity of the Japanese company Scythe. The only cooler available that is made entirely of rubber, namely Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (outer layer) and Styrene Butadiene Rubber (inner layer). The material is specially designed for high noise and vibration absorption. The workmanship is traditionally high for Scythe. Heat dissipation is carried out using an aluminum plate fixed to the top cover cooler. Curiously, the hard drive is installed upside down. The manufacturer does not specify what such an unusual installation of the hard drive will lead to, restrictions are also not reported, although all modern hard drives work without problems in this position. It is stated that it is possible to install any IDE or SATA hard drive with a spindle speed of up to 10,000 rpm. Cost around € 50
Hello, friends! What to do, if noisy (cracking) hard drive? If there was no cod before, but now it has appeared, then it is better to immediately save important data, since this is not a good sign. Then, diagnose the HDD with a special program from the manufacturer. How to do this I tell and show. If there was crackling or noise before, you just didn’t pay attention to it, then it’s normal. For example, when calming down, at the beginning, I could not hear the hard drive. But, over time, as there are 2 fans left in the system (in and in regular system cooling), these sounds became more distinct and began to irritate. How to reduce them, we will consider in this article.
As we said in the article - there are two sources of noise from the HDD:
- From the rotation of magnetic disks
- From hitting a block with heads on the stroke limiter
There is nothing we can do about disk rotation noise. Is it just to buy. But with the blows of the head block, as with the source of the main noise, you can and should fight. Vibrations also arise from the impact, and if they are not dampened, the situation will worsen.
There are several options for solving our problem.
- Secure your hard drive firmly in
- Make vibration-damping HDD mounts in the case
The first option is perfect for those who have high-quality cases made of good, thick steel. The second option should suit everyone. In my case, with a cheap case, hanging the hard drive on 4 pieces worked great. It was necessary to remove the sled in which the HDD was attached to the basket and freed up space for hanging. Who has no place, i.e. the hard drive is bolted to the case, you can try to put it vertically and hang it in the same way. Some people hang the hard drive under the optical drive. There are more places and it is more convenient to hang, but there is not much cooling there. Therefore, I recommend hanging directly in the basket for hard drives.
Those. the main task is to prevent vibrations from the hard drive from getting to. If you chose the first option (hardly screw the HDD to the case), then it would be appropriate to calculate the places where the resonance occurs and glue them with electrical tape. I myself did not reach this, but I read a lot and it seemed to work out not badly. Usually these are the places where the side covers are attached.
The third option, which we will consider in detail, is the use of AAM
Using Automatic Acoustic Management to Reduce HDD Noise
Automatic Acoustic Management - automatic control storage noise.
In addition to this function, hard drive manufacturers use special shock-absorbing pads that effectively suppress cracking. This is not always enough and not for everyone. And if not enough, you need to use AAM. This function controls the positioning speed of the head block. You can set a numerical value from 128 to 254. The larger the number, the higher the speed and, accordingly, more vibration and, as a result, noise.
There are many programs for managing AAM. Of the simplest, I can recommend WinAAM. There you can set only two positions 128 or 254. That is, either quietly and slowly, or loudly and quickly.
We will use the HDDScan program, which allows you to set any value from 128 to 254, and thus you can flexibly adjust the noise level from your .
You can download the program from the official website
Run HDDScan.exe
The main program window looks like this
The button in the center opens the main menu of the program. Select Features > IDE Features (if you have a hard drive with a SCSI interface - SCSI Features)
In the window that opens, we are interested in the Automatic Acoustic Management section. Here you see the current value of Current - 128 and the recommended value - Recommended - 254. I.e. recommend setting it to maximum performance.
You can set the desired value by entering a number in the Current field or by setting it using the slider. For the settings to take effect, press Set.
All. Now you can select any value for the optimal ratio of speed and silence.
Some hard drives do not support Automatic Acoustic Management
There is also an Advanced Power Management function that allows you to save energy by reducing the engine speed or completely stopping at the time of inactivity. It turns out that you can still control the speed of the magnetic plates, at least at the time of downtime. But this is not verified information. If anyone has used it, please post the results. Everyone will be interested.
Conclusion
To reduce noise and cod from the hard drive, manufacturers use special shock-absorbing pads. They certainly help, but I want more. Therefore, there are two ways:
- Do not let the vibrations from the hard drive jump to, (and if they get there by any means, do not let them resonate)
- Use Automatic Acoustic Management
According to the sensations from the first method, the effectiveness is colossal. It seems that the hard drive is working in a pillow and the crackling from it is only audible if you listen hard. Naturally, the greatest effect can be achieved using both methods. In my case, for the sake of silence, I will gladly sacrifice performance.
A hard drive is a key component of a computer that stores information. Everything lately more active users abandon HDD in favor of more fast SSD, but their cost still prevents many from putting all the necessary information on solid-state drives.
Why are hard drives noisy?
It is generally accepted that the noisiest component desktop computer and the laptop is a cooler. However, if the cooling system is well thought out, the operation of coolers can be almost inaudible.
The next most noisy element of the system unit is the hard drive. During operation, mechanical heads move inside the device, which read information from magnetic disks, which leads to noise. Sometimes the hard drive starts to crack and make noise so much that it causes discomfort when working at a computer.
The noise level of a hard drive depends on many factors: its speed, age and condition, case materials and build quality, as well as some others. Accordingly, it is possible to single out software and hardware ways to reduce the noise level of a hard drive during operation.
How to hardware reduce hard drive noise during operation
Usually, the older the hard drive, the more it starts to make noise. This is due to the wear of its elements, and a strong crack from the drive indicates its imminent failure. However, if there are no plans to replace the hard drive yet, you can perform vibration isolation in the computer case. There are two options for how to do this:
Another option to solve the problem with the noisy operation of computer components is to replace the case with a version that has good sound insulation.
How to programmatically reduce the noise of the hard drive during operation
If the hard drive is cracking, buzzing or knocking heavily during operation, you can try to fix it programmatically. As mentioned above, when a hard disk is operating, mechanical heads move inside it, which are looking for information on magnetic disks. Accordingly, there are two ways to reduce the noise from their movement:
Important: Please note that reducing the noise level of a hard drive implies a decrease in the speed of movement of the head, respectively, a decrease in the speed of the drive. However, in normal user tasks, such a decrease is almost imperceptible.
I think that users, especially those who are not the first day at the computer, pay attention to suspicious noises from the computer (laptop). Noise hard disk, usually different from other noises (reminiscent of crackling) and occurs when it is intensively loaded - for example, you copy big 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 the entire important information to other media, this may be a bad sign.
If you always had such a noise in the form of a cod- it means that this is the usual work of your hard drive, because it's all the same mechanical device and in it constantly there is a rotation of magnetic disks. 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 system block?
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 regular 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 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 it also reduces the speed. work hard disk. But, in this case - you will extend the life of the hard drive by an order of magnitude! Therefore, you choose - either noise and high speed work, or noise reduction and more long work 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. For regulation and adjustment of AAM - yes special utilities(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. 😛
If it was not noisy before, but now it is noisy - this is not normal. A properly working disk may emit a slight uniform noise / whistle and frequent, not too loud clicks during reading / writing (such a slight uneven rattling, these are magnetic heads moving).
If the disk rattles, vibrates - this is very bad. He most likely won't last long. Theoretically, the reason could be that it is loose (and then it rattles along with your drive bay, the walls of which (bay) are not strong enough to hold the drive during its operation). I have seen such mention. But it's hard for me to imagine how fragile, "cardboard" the walls of the mounts must be for this to happen. Except for the case when you installed a 3-inch hard drive in a 5-inch bay in a makeshift way (for this, a special adapter mount must be used, such a 3-inch bay inserted inside a 5-inch one). In this case, rattling is just likely.
If it's not the mount, then (aside from all the super-exotic once-in-a-million options) the drive is faulty. If it's under warranty, change it. If it is clearly rattling (not humming evenly, but rattling), this is a malfunction, so they must be changed. If the disc is out of warranty, then you can no longer rely on it. Do backup all important data and get ready for the fact that he could die at any moment. When my hard drive began to make suspicious noise, I immediately bought a new one, copied all the important information to it, and old disk I put it in the closet (in case I forgot to rewrite some important information).
You can also check the status ("health") of the disk (this information is collected by the disk itself during operation, the technology is called S.M.A.R.T. or SMART). It contains information about the number of different errors during the operation of the disk (a small number of errors is perfectly normal). To display this information, you will most likely need special program. I can’t suggest a convenient program (if you know English, you can search for hdd health check). However, caution should be exercised. If the disk is out of order, prolonged active disk operation during an in-depth check (not just showing the statistics collected by SMART, but testing the disk operation) can be the drop that will lead to a sharp deterioration in the disk's condition.
If the disc is just making a little noise, then it's noise from the drive (motor) (or maybe the bearings). Given that the disc is spinning at under 10,000 rpm, it's to be expected that it's a bit noisy.
I have at work old computer. Today I heard some kind of vibration several times. Toist something rattled in the system unit. Since the system is open, I looked there, listened, it really buzzed something, it looks like a vibration, it buzzes a couple of times and then it works. I can’t figure out what it is buzzing, but I have Word turned on and during its operation the cooler buzzes very strongly, the sound is as if it sounds like a ringing. And in the morning, after turning on the computer and loading it, for some reason we rebooted it ourselves. Moreover, I did not include anything on it. What could it be, I would like to know. Everything that I type on the computer in Word I save to a USB flash drive. But this is after the end of the working day. But now I'll probably save everything on a flash drive after the hard drive vibrates. Since my work computer is likely to break soon.
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