Thinkpads Forum

Hi!
I've just upgrade my old 80 GB Hitachi 5400 rpm from my t60 to a brand new 7k200 200GB . But there is somenthing annoying me.. I can fell it spinning all over the keyboard and palmrest.. even when HD is idle mode. Is that normal?

Thankss!

No, definitely not normal. Certainly doesn't happen to me. Possibly exchange it?

In the six or seven I have used I have never had that experience. Call for a replacement.

Brad

mario_jr wrote:Hi!
I've just upgrade my old 80 GB Hitachi 5400 rpm from my t60 to a brand new 7k200 200GB . But there is somenthing annoying me.. I can fell it spinning all over the keyboard and palmrest.. even when HD is idle mode. Is that normal?

Thankss!

First thing, get your personal data off of the drive and backed up to another drive. This thing's platters may be out of round, causing excessive vibration. Or, a bearing might be bad. Sooner than later, it will shake itself to the point failure.

If you still have your old drive, plug it in and run with it till you get a replacement.

No, this is not normal. I have used this exact same drive in X6x and T60 machines and have never felt it spinning.

I don't see it in my machine either ... Do you have Vista? Maybe its indexing ...

My old drive is on place right now.. silence.. no vibrations nothing.
Tomorrow Im going to RMA the 7k200..hope the new one survives til put my hands on it.
Thank you alot!!!
I love this place!

mario_jr wrote:My old drive is on place right now.. silence.. no vibrations nothing.
Tomorrow Im going to RMA the 7k200..hope the new one survives til put my hands on it.
Thank you alot!!!
I love this place!

I don't know what it is about 7200 rpm drives, but the three or four I have certainly have their own little "personalities". One "clacks" a whole lot while running. Ran a CHKDSK and found no problems. So annoying I only use it for file storage in the ultra bay, rather than as the boot drive.

Another one "ticks" loudly every 10 seconds or so. Annoying when I'm listening to quiet music.

The one in the machine now is silent and behaves nicely. Maybe it's the additional 1800 revs per minute that makes them fussy. Maybe it's the different brands or series or revisions...who knows....

I am not sure if this will help but you can adjust the acoustics with the Hitachi feature tool which can be found here.

Brad

Brad wrote:I am not sure if this will help but you can adjust the acoustics with the Hitachi feature tool which can be found here.

Brad

Hey Brad. thanks for the link
Right now im using my drive in a external enclosure.. and the 7k200 is vibrating.. like huumming.

Brad wrote:I am not sure if this will help but you can adjust the acoustics with the Hitachi feature tool which can be found here.

Brad

Thank you! I will download some things from there...

mgo wrote: I don't know what it is about 7200 rpm drives, but the three or four I have certainly have their own little "personalities". . . . .

Maybe it's the additional 1800 revs per minute that makes them fussy. Maybe it's the different brands or series or revisions...who knows....

I have two of the latest 7k200 generation and they are the quietest fastest laptop drives I have ever used regardless of rpm.

mario_jr wrote:Hi!
I've just upgrade my old 80 GB Hitachi 5400 rpm from my t60 to a brand new 7k200 200GB . But there is somenthing annoying me.. I can fell it spinning all over the keyboard and palmrest.. even when HD is idle mode. Is that normal?
:D
Thankss!

I second what some of the other folks here have said. I made the move from 5400 to 7200 when I got my T60p about 9 months ago. In the last three months, I bought 4 200gb drives with factory dates ranging from from Oct 07 to Jan 08.

The 100gb factory drive that my machine came with vibrates a lot, and makes a grating noise when reading/writing. Fed up with the noise, and needing more space anyway, I got two 200gb drives - one for the main slot, the other for the ultrabay adapter. Both were made in Dec 07 and both were very quiet. I kept my 100gb up to date as a fall-back system drive.

As a former 5400 user, I must say that even with the quiet ones I did notice the higher rpm's slightly - it is a different 'vibe'. Luckily the human body is a wonderfully adaptive machine - in a few weeks time you'll have gotten used to the particular vibe. The added speed will also help you get over it.

There's a sequel to the story, however. Two weeks ago my system drive, one of the two quiet ones, died without warning - after two months in use. I put the old 100gb drive back in so I could continue working, and ordered 2 more 200gb drives. Both (Oct 07/Jan 08) were slighly louder than the first two - but still a lot quieter than the 100gb one. When I get the replacement for the RMA'd defective drive, I'll see how that does.

Bottom line: Hitachi 200gb 7200 drives do seem to differ.
Get one or more spare ones and see how they feel. They aren't that expensive and a live cloned system drive should be part of any serious backup plan anyway. If you've got a deadline you don't have the time to order a new drive and wait for it to arrive.