Thinkpads Forum

I just bought a Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 60GB drive to replace the DK23EA-20 20GB hard drive in my Thinkpad R40. It's noticeably faster, uses a fair bit more power, runs cooler but it has this odd vibration. While it's running, the palmrest of the R40 has a minute vibration through it and after a while of use, it feels like my fingers are going slightly numb. I distinctly remember my 20 GB drive being silent and having no vibration.

I think this is the second drive with this condition I have discovered, the first being a recovered-from-the-dead Seagate 40GB drive. Does anyone if this is normal and if so, how to get around it? (I don't think I want to put up with it so I might just have to go back to a slower 20 GB drive if that is the case).

I imagine it has S.M.A.R.T features so you might be able to reduce its rotation speed with Hitachi's software:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

I believe "Feature Tool" is what you want.

When you boot into it, I think you'll find the rotation speed is couched in terms of noise...so the quietest setting will give you slower rotation/reduced power consumption.

it feels like my fingers are going slightly numb.

I think I'd probably return that drive.

Try using the Feature Tool or the PowerBooster on it to throttle the state at which it runs at. If the virbation doesn't go away, to at least the levels of your older drive, when you take down the settings on it, that would be a good indicator of a problem with that HDD.