The hard drive is humming. Reducing the noise of the hard drive. Reducing noise from the hard drive using AAM

Why is it bursting HDD

When a computer (PC) is running, users often complain about the presence extraneous noise or cod. In most cases, noises are caused by the operation of fans (coolers), but the crackle is most likely from the hard drive. Then the question arises: why is the hard drive bursting? There may be several reasons, such as a malfunction of the hard disk and poor fastening, fixing the hard drive inside the computer case, due to which, as a result, extraneous vibrations are created and the hard drive begins to rattle. True, for the sake of fairness, it should be noted that the hard drive actually constantly emits a characteristic noise, and this is quite justified, since the principle of operation of the hard drive is precisely that during the reading of information magnetic heads begin to rotate. This is especially true for old HDDs.

If the noise becomes annoying or it was not there before, but after a while it appeared, then this may also be a sign that the hard drive may soon fail. Also, the fact that the hard drive is possibly faulty may be evidenced by the fact that with the appearance of noise, the computer began to work worse and slower, periodically freezes, gives various errors or does not want to boot at all. Therefore, here you need to seriously think about checking the disk for errors.

Below we will discuss the main reasons why a hard drive is noisy.

The main reasons why a hard drive is bursting

The first reason is poor fixation in the case of the system unit of the hard drive. There is only one way out - just make out system unit and securely mount the hard drive. But it is often impossible to do this because of the cheap case. In this case, one of the most common options among users is to hang the hard drive on pieces of twisted pair cable. All you need to do is pull out the sled on which the hard drive was attached.

The second reason why the hard drive on a laptop and a PC makes noise is the specifics of the work specific model drive. This is his normal mode of operation. True, if such noise greatly interferes, then you can resort to the method of reducing it by reducing the rotation speed of the hard drive heads.
There is such a function for hard drives as automatic noise control - Automatic AcousticManagement (abbreviated AAM). Its essence lies in the fact that you can reduce the rotation speed of the magnetic heads and, thus, reduce the noise level. But in this case, the hard drive will also be slower to read data. Therefore, here each user decides specifically for himself what is more important for him - the absence of noise or high performance.

This method is implemented by various by software... There are many such programs on the Internet, so it won't be difficult to find. You can also just enter a request for a bursting hard drive what to do and immediately search system will give out a lot of information and articles that mention specific titles programs through which the AAM mechanism can be implemented. The main point of it all software in the fact that there are two numbers 128 and 254. The first is when the hard disk will work quietly, but slower, and the second is fast, but it will make a lot of noise. You can try experimentally to find the optimal value for yourself.
The next most dangerous reason is a hard drive malfunction or a certificate that it will soon need to be replaced or returned for repair.

What to do when the hard drive is noisy due to a malfunction?

When the excessive noise of the drive is associated with its malfunction, then it is imperative to check for errors. We will tell you how to do this in Russian below.

Before checking it is recommended to do backup all data. It is better to purchase for such purposes external hard a disk that connects to a PC or laptop via USB. The check can be done as regular means the operating system (OS) Windows XP / 7/8/10 itself, and other software:
1. Checking using standard operating system tools.
The Windows OS family provides such an opportunity as checking the hard drive for errors and their automatic fix... It is enough just to highlight desired disk by using right button mouse and in context menu select Properties. Then select the Service item and click the Check button. Be sure to check the box next to the items: "Automatically fix errors" and "Check and repair bad sectors". It is advisable that at this time no processes and applications are running on the PC, otherwise the system may give an error that it is impossible to check, since this disc is currently being used by other applications and processes. If errors are found at the end of the check, then it is advisable to carry out additional diagnostics using proprietary utilities from the HDD manufacturer.
2. Checking with the manufacturer's software allows for more advanced diagnostics and has a number of additional tests. Such programs can also be found on the Internet or downloaded from the hard drive manufacturer's website. If, as a result of such a test, problems are also found, then we can conclude that the reason for the excessive noise of the hard drive is its malfunction.

The hard drive has been determined to be defective. Action options

So, as a result of the tests, it was determined: due to the presence of errors, the hard disk makes noise, what to do in such a situation? There are two options here:
- if the warranty period has not expired, then pass for warranty repair to the service center;
- if the warranty is over, also carry it to a specialized computer service, but you will have to pay money for repairs.

Maybe the most worst case- when the hard drive is completely out of order and cannot be repaired. In this case, you need to collect money for a new hard drive. This is why it is useful to always have a backup of important data, because no one is immune from such situations.

If before he did not make noise, but now he makes noise - this is not normal. A properly working disk can emit a slight uniform noise / whistle and frequent, not too loud clicks during reading / writing (such a slight uneven rattling, this is the movement of the magnetic heads).

If the disc rattles, vibrates, this is very bad. Most likely, he will not last long. In theory, the reason could be that it is not properly secured (and then it rattles along with your drive bay, the walls of which (the bay) are not strong enough to hold the drive while it is running). I have seen such a mention. But it's hard for me to imagine how fragile, "cardboard" the walls of the mountings must be for this to happen. Unless you installed a 3-inch hard drive in a 5-inch bay in a homemade way (a special adapter mount must be used for this, such a 3-inch bay that fits inside a 5-inch bay). In this case, bounce is just likely.

If it's not about the mount, then (discarding all the super-exotic options that happen once in a million) the disk is faulty. If it's under warranty, change it. If it clearly rattles (not evenly buzzing, namely rattling), this is a malfunction, so they must change. If the disc is out of warranty, then you can no longer count on it. Back up all your important data and be prepared for the fact that he could die at any time. When my hard drive began to make a suspicious noise, I immediately bought a new one, rewrote all important information, a old disk put it in the closet (in case you forgot to rewrite some important information).

You can also check the state ("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 disk operation (a small number of errors is completely normal). To display this information, you will most likely need a special program. Convenient program I can’t tell you (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 statistics collected by SMART, but testing disk performance) may turn out to be that drop that will lead to a sharp deterioration in the disk's condition.

If the disc is just a little noisy, then this is the noise from the drive (motor) (or maybe the bearings). Considering that the disc spins at about 10,000 rpm, it is quite expected that it is slightly noisy.

I have an old computer at work. Several times today I have heard some kind of vibration. Toist something rattled in the system unit. Since the system is open, I looked in there, listened, something was really buzzing, it looked like vibration, it would buzz a couple of times and continue to work. What is it buzzing, I can’t figure it out, but I have Vord turned on and during its operation the cooler buzzes very much, the sound is like a ringing sound. And in the morning, after turning on and loading the computer, for some reason, we rebooted ourselves. Moreover, I did not include anything on it. What could it be, I would like to know. I save everything that I type on the computer in the Word to a USB flash drive. But this is after the end of the working day. But now I will probably save everything on a USB flash drive after vibration of the hard drive. Since my work computer is likely to break down soon.

To answer

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The hard disk is also a "hard drive" - ​​an important component of any computer. It is installed not only operating system, but also important documents and files (music, video, photo) are stored. Like any other component, over time, it wears out and breaks down and breaks down. And the main symptom of this is the appearance of noise and hum of the hard disk. In this case, the first thing to do is to help avoid sharp breakage.

However, this may not always be the reason. New drives of some brands and models also have an increased noise level, and this is their normal operating condition.

Below we will consider several options for reducing the noise of the hard drive: manually and programmatically.

AAM

Newer HDDs support the special function “ Automatic Acoustic Management", With its help you can adjust the speed of movement of the read heads, thereby reducing the noise of the laptop hard drive.

Default this function disabled, so to enable it we use a utility called "WinAAM", it is free and very lightweight. You can find and download it on the Internet.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that after exhibiting quiet mode, the speed of the drive also decreases. However, it is very difficult to notice this by eye.

CrystalDiskInfo

If for some reason the previous program did not suit you or did not help you, the hard disk still makes noise under load and because of this, then I recommend using this utility. With its help, we will more flexibly configure the AAM function. But it also has other useful features, for example, you can view detailed HDD parameters, the current state and check for errors.

So what needs to be done:

After that, the hard drive will start working with the new settings in quiet mode.

There may be several reasons in CrystalDiskInfo:

• The HDD is old and the utility simply does not support it
• Physical or logical malfunction

How to diagnose HDD, it was said at the beginning of the article.

Defragmentation

Another way that can help you if the hard drive of a laptop or computer makes a lot of noise or buzz during operation. As mentioned above, this is due to the moving mechanical heads, or rather, to their speed.

To do this, we will reduce the distance that they need to cover in order to get to the desired section of the disk and read information from it. This is done quite simply using a regular defragmentation. It will arrange the clusters with information in order, reduce the distance between them, thereby increasing the speed of access to them. Simply put, it will be easier for the hard drive to read necessary information, the load on it will decrease, and then the noise and hum of the hard drive will decrease.

But you can also use the built-in utility:

This will eliminate the hum and buzz of the drive.

Manual way

If you have a desktop computer, and not a laptop, you can use one of the following methods.

Now you know what to do when the hard drive starts making third-party sounds (noise, buzzing and buzzing) during operation, and you can solve this problem yourself using the methods discussed above.

Hello, friends! What to do, if the hard drive is noisy (crackling)? 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 special program from the manufacturer. I tell and show how to do this. If there was a crackling or noise before, you just didn’t pay attention to it, then it’s fine. For example, when I calmed down, at the beginning, I could not hear the hard drive. But, over time, as there were 2 fans left in the system (in and in the standard cooling system), these sounds became clearer and began to annoy. We will consider how to reduce them in this article.

As we said in the article, there are two sources of noise from the HDD:

• From rotating magnetic disks
• From the impact of the block with heads on the travel stop

We cannot do anything with the noise from the rotation of the disks. Perhaps, just buy it. But with the blows of the block of heads, as with the source of the main noise, it is possible and necessary to fight. Also, vibrations arise from the shock and if they are not damped, then the situation will worsen.

There are several options for solving our problem.

1. Secure your hard drive firmly in
2. 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 work for 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 mounted in the basket and free 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 there and it is more convenient to hang, but there is not very much with cooling. Therefore, I recommend hanging it directly in the hard drive cage.

Those. the main task is to prevent vibrations from the hard drive from getting to. If you chose the first option (to firmly 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 didn’t get it myself, but I read a lot and it didn’t seem to work out badly. Usually these are the attachment points for the side covers.

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 of drive noise.

In addition to this function, hard drive manufacturers use special shock-absorbing pads that effectively suppress crackling. This is not always enough 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 higher the number, the higher the speed and, accordingly, the more vibration and, as a result, noise.

There are many programs for managing AAM. Of the simplest I can recommend WinAAM. There you can only set 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 own.

You can download the program from the official website

Run HDDScan.exe

The main window of the program 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 SCSI interface- SCSI Features)

In the window that opens, we are interested in the Automatic Acoustic Management section. Here you can see the current value of Current - 128 and the recommended value - Recommended - 254. recommend setting for maximum performance.

You can set the desired value by entering a number in the Current field or by setting it using the slider. To make the settings take effect, press Set.

Everything. Now you can select any value for optimal ratio speed and silence.

On some hard disk x Automatic Acoustic Management not supported

There is also the Advanced Power Management function - which allows you to save energy by reducing the engine speed or stopping completely at the time of inactivity. It turns out that you can still control the speed of movement of the magnetic plates, at least at the time of downtime. But this is not verified information. If someone has used it, please write down the results. It will be interesting for everyone.

Conclusion

To reduce noise and crackling from the hard drive, manufacturers use special shock-absorbing pads. They certainly help, but I want more. Therefore, there are two ways:

1. Prevent vibrations from the hard drive from jumping over to, (and if they get there by anyone, prevent them from resonating)
2. Use Automatic Acoustic Management

The first method feels like the efficiency is colossal. It seems that the hard drive is working in a pillow and the crackling sound from it is heard only if you listen strongly. Naturally, the greatest effect can be achieved using both methods. In my case, for the sake of silence, I would gladly sacrifice performance.

I think that users, especially those who are not the first day at the computer, pay attention to suspicious noises from the computer (laptop). Hard disk noise is usually different from other noises (similar to crackling) and occurs when it is heavily loaded - for example, you copy large 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 the following. Not all hard drive models make noise.

If your device was not noisy before, but now it's the beginning - I recommend it to you. In addition, when noise appears that has never existed before - first of all, do not forget to copy all important information to other media, this can be a bad sign.

If you have always had such a noise in the form of a crack- this means that this is the usual work of your hard disk, because it is still a mechanical device and magnetic disks are constantly rotating in it. There are two methods of dealing with such noise: fixing or fixing the hard disk in the device case so that there is no vibration and resonance; the second method is to decrease the speed of positioning of the readheads (they just crack).

1. How can you fix the hard drive in the system unit?

By the way, if you have a laptop, you can skip straight to the second part of the article. The fact is that in a laptop, as a rule, nothing can be invented, tk. the devices inside the case are very compact and you can't 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 case of the system unit. Sometimes, the hard drive is not even bolted to the mount, it just sits on a "slide", because of this, noise is emitted during operation. Check if it is well fixed, stretch the bolts, often, if it is attached, then not on all the bolts.

2) Special soft pads can be used to dampen vibration and thereby suppress noise. By the way, such gaskets can be made by yourself, from some piece of rubber. The only thing is, do not make them too large - they should not obstruct the ventilation around the hard drive enclosure. 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 was fixed on a slide. 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 for it end in failure (especially when the device is turned on).

2.Reduction of crackling and noise due to the speed of positioning of the block with heads (Automatic Acoustic Management)

There is one option in the hard disk that does not appear anywhere by default - you can change it only with the help of special utilities. It's 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 at the same time, the speed of the hard disk is also reduced. But, in this case, you will extend the life of the hard disk by an order of magnitude! Therefore, the choice is yours - either noise and high speed of work, or reduction of the noise level and more long work your disk.

By the way, I want to say that having reduced the noise on my Acer laptop - I could not estimate the speed of work "by eye" - it works the same as before!

So. For regulation and adjustment of AAM - there is special utilities(I talked about one of them in). This is a simple and convenient utility - quietHDD ().

You need to run it as administrator. Then 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 decrease in cod.

By the way, so that every time you turn on the computer you do not run this utility again - add it to startup. For Windows 2000, XP, 7, Vista - you can just copy the utility shortcut in the "Start" menu to the "Startup" folder.

This is actually all. Good luck to everyone, and, most importantly, quiet operation. 😛