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HDD clicking on X41T - cache problem on the drive?

X20/X21, X30/X31, X40/X41 Series
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Grey Area
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Posts: 78
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2005 12:02 pm

#91 Post by Grey Area » Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:21 am

According to Sysinternals´ Diskmon there is a write access to my X41´s disk whenever it clicks. And according to DiskView, the sectors written to belong to a system file - unfortunately the program cannot tell which system file exactly. Is there a better tool that might help, as I´m not that well-versed in this area? If the clicking is just caused by some unimportant background process, then I might simply turn it off.

Björn

Bman
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:42 am
Location: Amsterdam

#92 Post by Bman » Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:48 am

Recently (15 sep 2005) purchased the 60 GB Hitachi drive.
(HTC426060G9AT00 )
It does make the "click" sound.

Seems as fast as the original 40 GB
(HTC424040F9AT00 Build 14 sep 2004).

Hdtune 60 GB:
HTC426060G9AT00
Firmware:00P3A0A3
Serial number:E1EG70
Capacity: 55.9 GB
Buffer: 0 KB
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 - 100 - 50 - 516 - Failed

Hdtune 40 GB:
HITACHI-DK13FA-40B
Firmware:00MCA0B4
Serial number:342508
Capacity: 37.3 GB
Buffer: 2048 KB
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 - 100 - 50 - 178 - Failed
X40 2386H6G Build: 2004-11-03 | 60 GB HTC426060G9AT00 | 8-Cell Battery | 1,49 GB ram

Bman
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Location: Amsterdam

#93 Post by Bman » Sun Oct 16, 2005 7:11 am

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

Anyone tried the "Feature Tool v1.98" already?
X40 2386H6G Build: 2004-11-03 | 60 GB HTC426060G9AT00 | 8-Cell Battery | 1,49 GB ram

caero
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 6:28 pm

#94 Post by caero » Thu Oct 20, 2005 6:38 pm

I just got a new x40 today.

My experience with clicking noises so far:

When the drive is actively reading/writing = no clicking at all

When in semi idle state with occassional read/write procedures = click click every 3-6 seconds.

When completely idle = a click every 20-30 secs or so.


After having completed this SP2 installation I will try running HD Tune or whatever program to see what info I can get from that.

Could it be the S.M.A.R.T stuff that causes these clicks?

blackomegax
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#95 Post by blackomegax » Thu Oct 20, 2005 10:34 pm

the click is the head parking itself (very hard parking, but parking).

the HDD wont be any worse for it, its merely annoying.

me? i cant wait for 1.8" flash drives of decent price and capacity.

buswolf
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:32 pm

#96 Post by buswolf » Fri Oct 28, 2005 8:44 am

I know some hds have this kind of clicking noise. But my hd makes clicking sound far frequent than usual(every second when I browse the internet). I can;t bear with that. I called the service and got an exchange. My new x40 will arrive soon.

amgdoc
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#97 Post by amgdoc » Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:14 pm

buswolf wrote:I know some hds have this kind of clicking noise. But my hd makes clicking sound far frequent than usual(every second when I browse the internet). I can;t bear with that. I called the service and got an exchange. My new x40 will arrive soon.

all i know is this clicking-hd did not fail me like other non-clicking-hd did.


inform us on your new x40 and if the clicking-hd is still there.
thinkpad x40, type:2372-9EU, (2x) 512MB, 40GB HD (4200rpm), 802.11abg, CDC bluetooth

thinkpad x60s, type:1702-94U, (2X) 512MB, 40GB HD (5400rpm), 802.11abg, Ultralight LCD.

buswolf
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:32 pm

#98 Post by buswolf » Mon Oct 31, 2005 2:40 pm

amgdoc wrote:
buswolf wrote:I know some hds have this kind of clicking noise. But my hd makes clicking sound far frequent than usual(every second when I browse the internet). I can;t bear with that. I called the service and got an exchange. My new x40 will arrive soon.

all i know is this clicking-hd did not fail me like other non-clicking-hd did.


inform us on your new x40 and if the clicking-hd is still there.
I just got my new X40. The clicking sound is still there, maybe less frequent. So I suppose that's normal now if there is no defects with these micro hds.

Happy Halloween! :twisted: :twisted:

Yotam
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Location: Israel

#99 Post by Yotam » Mon Oct 31, 2005 4:10 pm

buswolf wrote:So I suppose that's normal now if there is no defects with these micro hds.
These drives ARE defected if they have these clickes and this noise. No matter how it effects, if it does, the data or the drive lifetime. (If you understand me)

Happy Halloween to all of you!
X41 Tablet 18666TU 1.5GHz CPU, 60GB HDD, 1.5GB RAM, DVD-CDRW

buswolf
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:32 pm

#100 Post by buswolf » Mon Oct 31, 2005 10:16 pm

Yotam wrote:
buswolf wrote:So I suppose that's normal now if there is no defects with these micro hds.
These drives ARE defected if they have these clickes and this noise. No matter how it effects, if it does, the data or the drive lifetime. (If you understand me)

Happy Halloween to all of you!
I'm not sure it is a defect. Some say the sound is coming from the head parking of hds and it's normal. It seems that, from the information I gathered from the internet, not all the X41 users experienced this problem. There is no proof that the sound may cause the hd failure. But on the other hand from years of using alll kinds of notebooks, it is hard for me to believe that this hd (mine is hitachi DK13FA-40B) has no questionable design on this particular issue. I hope anyone has the same kind of hd as mine could tell me whether they have this strange sound.

And BTW, if i'm going to change my hd, Does anybody have any suggestion that if there are other good choices which are compatible with X41 except this hitachi hd?

checkyourmirrors
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Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:24 pm

#101 Post by checkyourmirrors » Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:09 am

Iam not as technical as everyone on this thread so I am looking for some simple clarification for my X41 Tablet with a 60Gb drive. I like the tablet but the drive performance is making me consider going back to my T Series unit.

1) HDD is performance is terrible
2) My mouse "studders" when drive is in use
3) My drive clicks a fair amount
4) Hitachi test shows no Cache

Is there a confirmed problem with these drives yet? And forecast on what is going to happen about the drive performance?

Bloody Nokia Adept
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Location: Kyiv, Ukraine

#102 Post by Bloody Nokia Adept » Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:33 pm

Hi,

I've bought X40 couple days ago:
* manufactured Feb 2005
* HDD is a HITACHI DK13FA-40B - ticking once per about 3 secs

It recognizes HDD cash correctly by the HDTune tool. But the interesting I've noticed (except for an annoying ticking) are the SMART attributes which are constantly growing:
* (07) Seek Error Rate
* (E6) (unknown attribute)
* (FA) (unknown attribute)
Don't you know anything on their treatment?

Thanks

ratoto67
Freshman Member
Posts: 76
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2005 7:09 am
Location: Strasbourg, France

#103 Post by ratoto67 » Tue Nov 08, 2005 7:17 am

Hi,
according to .di (page 3) and the answer from Hitachi this clicking is quite normal ... I have to say that I got my X41 yesterday and I noticed this after 30 minutes of use. But if this is normal and because the disk is not that bad for a 4200 rpm, I think we should not worry that much. Of course if I compare with the HD of my desktop computer (7200 rpm, 8 MB of cache), this 4200 rpm is just super slow.....

pliskent
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:58 am

#104 Post by pliskent » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:48 am

I just called to IBM, and they told me that they will send me a new harddrive. :D I have X41 new, HD is Model HTC426060G9AT00

christopher_wolf
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#105 Post by christopher_wolf » Mon Dec 05, 2005 6:42 pm

I have used an X41 Tablet and an X40 with similar Hard Drive specs; I haven't really noticed that much clicking, but I can imagine it has much to do with the 4200RPM Speed. The measure of a Drives usefulness would be given by the SMART Utility and not normal clicking. I have also heard this clicking in other ultra-portables that have the 4200RPM Drive. From the specs I have read, and the way Windows handles data from the HDD, I wouldn't be suprised that a 4200RPM HDD clicks more than a 5400RPM or 7200RPM HDD simply because, between parks, the heads cannot pull and buffer the data off the platters quickly enough and have to wait for another revolution to "give it a miss" as it were and try to read the rest of the data. I have played around with closed loop control systems of hard drives in Simulink and, besides being quite complex, there are parameters that, if changed, can result in very wacky behavior on the part of the HDD; rapid head parking or steady-state vibration, etc.
IBM ThinkPad T43 Model 2668-72U 14.1" SXGA+ 1GB |IBM 701c

~o/
I met someone who looks a lot like you.
She does the things you do.
But she is an IBM.
/~o ---ELO from "Yours Truly 2059"

bonez318ti
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 4:30 pm

X40 with clicking noise and 0 buffer

#106 Post by bonez318ti » Tue Dec 06, 2005 5:35 pm

I recieved my refurbished (via: IBM Certified Used) yesterday. I've been browsing this site and decided to dl HD Tune to see if this HD problem affected me. (I've been hearing clicking when my computer should have been idle)

Well, lo and behold, HDTune says that my HD has 0 buffer. The clicking noise is intermitten, sometimes it is like 1 or 2 per second, sometimes it goes for a while before clicking.. and sometimes the clicking is really faint and sometimes (only 2x) it was very loud.

I ran the benchmarking test, with everything off (antiviruses, etc) I get:
Access Time: ~20
Burst Rate: ~70 Mb/s

Im not very technically inclined, but some people have mentioned that 0 cache should not show very high burst rates, so there must be cache.. and HDTune is misreading the cache number?

Does that sound right? Anyone know the relationship between cache and burst rate?

By the way, my hd is HTC42040G9AT00, its the 40 gig version.

Thanks

ZeroNez
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:36 am
Location: Greenock UK
Contact:

#107 Post by ZeroNez » Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:47 am

Hey guys,
Lots of you seems to be interested on issue with x41 with hitachiTravelstar C4K60 htc426060g9at00. Well we ran test's to the hard disk and it is working totally fine, the data burst test showed the correct data flow as it should show. Currently it is a SATA brigde problem, bit like in t43 (bios 2010 error) what someone earlier mentioned in this page.

The thing is as these programs hd tune 2.5 and drive fitness test use S.M.A.R.T channel to read to data out of the disk's and because of the slight problem with the sata bridge, smart channel [censored] up the sata brigde and doesnt get all the information like the data buffer size but otherwise works totally okay.

And the other thing was the clicking sound with the hardrive. Well due to a less insulation on computers and hard drives the noise is bit louder than before, for example older models like t42. And most of the new hard drives are making that bit louder noice and unfortunatelly we cant do nothing about it.

So everything is working as designed.

oh and btw the "loud" sound out of hard disk is when the needle park its self out of the hard disk tracks :)
IBM - Greenock

ralph
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:26 am

X20 with clicking

#108 Post by ralph » Mon Jan 09, 2006 6:12 pm

Just to let you know, my X20 has the same issue with a toshiba 20 gb hd. 0 cache reported by PC Doctor and HD Tune, and terrible clicking and response time. Time to throw out my thinkpad? What do y'all think?
Ralph

ZeroNez
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Location: Greenock UK
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Re: X20 with clicking

#109 Post by ZeroNez » Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:59 am

ralph wrote:Just to let you know, my X20 has the same issue with a toshiba 20 gb hd. 0 cache reported by PC Doctor and HD Tune, and terrible clicking and response time. Time to throw out my thinkpad? What do y'all think?
Ralph
Hey Raplh, I suggest you run Drive Fitness Test on your machine. You can fin the test from:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm.

That at its showing 0 cache might be a cause of melfuntioning ide bridge
and its just not showing the data right.

The test should give you a disposition code like 0x00 or 0xXX. If it gives you anything else than 0x00 its broken.

Zero
IBM - Greenock

dorin
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x40 user here...

#110 Post by dorin » Fri Jan 27, 2006 6:24 pm

so you mean that even with zero cache if the fiteness tool give a 0x00 code message it means everything is going fine?

i got today my new hdd (HTC426040G9AT00) after the previous one had some bad clusters on it and most of all was driving me nuts with an high pitched noise.

and i discovered zero cache on the new one, shall i call ibm asking for another drive or what? is it really slower than the one with 2mb? cause according to benchmarks i wouldnt think so....

a's is the new one (zero cache) b's is the old one (2mb cache)

thanks,

dorin
http://bocanila.ro/hdd/1a.png

http://bocanila.ro/hdd/1b.png

http://bocanila.ro/hdd/2a.png

http://bocanila.ro/hdd/2b.png

http://bocanila.ro/hdd/3a.png

http://bocanila.ro/hdd/3b.png
X40 (2386H6G) 1.4Ghz 1.5Gb 40Gb

dorin
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#111 Post by dorin » Mon Jan 30, 2006 8:52 am

hi guys,

i've just finished talking with IBM (Switzerland) and they've told me that the problem (0 cache) was fixed and its just an error of the test. they were aware about the problem and it was fiexd. they assured me that is impossible that the new hdd leavgin from them now to have a real 0 cache level. it's there.

anyway i enjoy an abit faster hdd and thanks god a silent one!
X40 (2386H6G) 1.4Ghz 1.5Gb 40Gb

Adam
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#112 Post by Adam » Mon Jan 30, 2006 1:09 pm

dorin wrote:hi guys,

i've just finished talking with IBM (Switzerland) and they've told me that the problem (0 cache) was fixed and its just an error of the test. they were aware about the problem and it was fiexd. they assured me that is impossible that the new hdd leavgin from them now to have a real 0 cache level. it's there.

anyway i enjoy an abit faster hdd and thanks god a silent one!
So your old one actually had 0 cache and they replaced it for you? Mine is in the shop now, hopefully they replace the HD for me.
X41t (18666SU)

dorin
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#113 Post by dorin » Tue Jan 31, 2006 12:11 pm

hi there,

no, the old one has 2mb cache but clicks all the time and has an annoing high pitched noise. the new one, which according to benchmarktest is abit faster, has 0 cache.

they say that they have been fixed (the ones in stock) and they still work on the interface, which is the pb, cache is there but it doesnt appear. they were abit surprised that i got it from them few days ago and the interface is still wrong, but they assured the cache is there!

anybody ran a benchmark on an x40?! curious to see if same speed there!

dorin
X40 (2386H6G) 1.4Ghz 1.5Gb 40Gb

ZeroNez
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#114 Post by ZeroNez » Wed Feb 01, 2006 4:22 am

Hey Dorin,

We tested the drives at here IBM greenock and did all the benchmarking test's and the drives are working totally fine.

The problem what causes this is the melfunctioning SATA bridge, the only problem is when you use tools like Drive Fitness Test or so the program uses s.m.a.r.t channel to communicate with the drive and so for the program doesnt not see the correct size of the cache due to the slight problem with the SATA bridge.

But I can assure you that in normal use, the computer communicates with drive correctly and uses the cache.

I appreciate your concerns but this is not effecting in any way how your machine works.

Regards,

ZeroNez
IBM - Greenock

zmlizm
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#115 Post by zmlizm » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:31 am

I just bought a new X41 two days ago. I can hear the clicking sound too.
X41 2525-AM6 P-M1.6G, 1G RAM, 60GHD, Fingerprint & bluetooth!
T40 2373-7CU
T20 2648-84U

snife
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#116 Post by snife » Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:58 am

I do not think it is anything to do with a SATA bridge as previous X41 drives show the 2048 cache when inserted into the same system, and these drives show 0 cache in any system.

I think it is just the way the recording of this cache has been set on these drives and i'm sure future versions of the DFT will detect this properly. However, I did test the drives in the exact same setup (fresh windows xp image with HDTune on an X41 system) with the following results (an average of 3):

HTC426040G9AT00 (40GB 1.8" drive as found in X41t - no cache displayed by enquiry tools)

Transfer Rate: 16.4MB/s
Access Time: 19.76ms
Burst Rate: 70.7MB/s

HTC424040F9AT00 (40GB 1.8" drive as found in X41 - 2048KB cache displayed by enquiry tools)

Transfer Rate: 16.1MB/s
Access Time: 20.6ms
Burst Rate: 56.8MB/s

Most notible is the burst rate which is largely dependant on cache so I think it proves that the drives must have the 2048 cache as specified.

The clicking noise by itself is nothing to worry about.

andi25at
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:07 am

#117 Post by andi25at » Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:29 am

hello,

I have had the annoying hd clicking noise for about a year now. I am running gentoo linux on a thinkpad x40.
In this time I got two replacement harddisks because they were destroyed by the head parking procedure which took place every 7-20 seconds.
I think this problem has nothing to do with the harddisk nor with its cache.
Its caused by the embedded controller software which sets the harddisk standby time to 5 seconds every hd access, which means that the hd will park its heads 5 seconds later.
turning it off once doesn't help. i wrote a linux deamon which turns of the hd standby timer every 3 seconds and didn't have any clicks since.
i got used to this clicks during the last year so i really miss them now.
or not? guess what!

if you are interested visit

http://geri-freki.net/mediawiki/

andreas

p.s. sometimes i had the high pitch noise too.

ashtrax
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:11 pm

#118 Post by ashtrax » Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:22 pm

andi25at wrote:hello,

I have had the annoying hd clicking noise for about a year now. I am running gentoo linux on a thinkpad x40.
In this time I got two replacement harddisks because they were destroyed by the head parking procedure which took place every 7-20 seconds.
I think this problem has nothing to do with the harddisk nor with its cache.
Its caused by the embedded controller software which sets the harddisk standby time to 5 seconds every hd access, which means that the hd will park its heads 5 seconds later.
turning it off once doesn't help. i wrote a linux deamon which turns of the hd standby timer every 3 seconds and didn't have any clicks since.
i got used to this clicks during the last year so i really miss them now.
or not? guess what!

if you are interested visit

http://geri-freki.net/mediawiki/

andreas

p.s. sometimes i had the high pitch noise too.
Hey

I was wondering if it was possible to do the same with an X40 running windows xp. I have both the clicking sounds, and a constant high pitched noise coming from my drive.

Im thinking on returning the entire pc to get it fixed, but im in the middle of a huge paper, so i'll just have to wait.
IBM X40 owner

andi25at
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#119 Post by andi25at » Sun Mar 19, 2006 4:26 am

hello ashtrax!

I'm sure that this can be done for winxp too. But I don't know how difficult it would be, since you need low level harddrive access.

I don't think the constant high pitch noise is caused by the head parking. Maybe you should ask for a replacement hdd.

andreas

Grey Area
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#120 Post by Grey Area » Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:47 am

I'm not sure if this method would help in XP, or at least I don't think that it would solve this problem alone. I rarely get to hear the louder head-parking click, because the drive usually is not idle for the required amount of time - instead it starts writing (apparently to some system sectors) every few seconds. It is the ticking of these constant write accesses that is bothering me. If these accesses could be switched off somehow (so far I have not been able to identify the writing process), then I guess the number of head-parking clicks would increase, and that in turn would require something like your solution.

Björn

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