Like any other pet, the computer publishes its own . The squeak at boot, the buzz of the coolers of the power supply, processor and video card, the crackling of the hard drive - all let you know that this "organism" lives. When everything is normal, the level of these noises does not cause discomfort, but there is probably nothing more annoying when cracking HDD , squeaks, squeaks - few people have the patience to survive this.

In principle, it is impossible to completely get rid of the sounds emitted by the hard drive, since this device incorporates mechanical components that move in contact with each other, and therefore make noise. Unlike silent solid-state drives, the hard drive consists of magnetic disks, on which the information read by the magnetic heads is stored. Basically, the noise occurs during the movement of the magnetic head over the surface of the plate.

The level and nature of the noise emitted by the hard drive depends on the material of the case, the assembly features and the quality of the components, and, of course, the age of the hard drive itself. An important component in the overall noise level of a computer is the case. system block. Made of metal of sufficient thickness, a precisely fitted and well-assembled case is unlikely to cause you annoyance due to constant noise, especially if the hard drive and other elements containing the mechanics are installed on sound-absorbing pads. And vice versa, a poorly assembled light and thin-walled case with ill-fitting elements will serve as a resonator and only amplify the sounds emitted by the hard drive.

Also, with age, the noise level from the hard drive tends to increase due to the growing wear and tear of parts that are in motion.

Considering all the above factors, we can sketch out a list of possible measures to reduce the noise level of a hard drive:

• Make additional noise and vibration isolation of the hard drive, install it on sound-absorbing pads.
• Carry out (this will reduce the number of movements of the magnetic head for a certain period of time, but this measure is temporary and will need to be repeated periodically).
• Adjust the AAM to the minimum noise level.
• Replace the hard drive with a new one with a lower noise level. Read.

Since everything is more or less clear with the first two positions of this list, and the last paragraph involves significant financial costs due to problems with the hard drive, we will consider the third paragraph in more detail.

We reduce the crackle of the hard drive using the WinAAM program

All hard drives with ATA interfaces, and even more so SATA, have in their settings a tool for controlling the level of emitted noise - Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM for short). The principle of operation of this option is based on a decrease in the speed of movement of the magnetic heads, and, accordingly, the level of noise produced is reduced. It will not be difficult to guess that this also reduces the performance of the hard drive, but here everything is very individual for each user, everyone has a different prioritization. But you should not tune yourself too critically to this tool in advance, you may not even pay attention to changes in the speed of the hard drive, but you will definitely get rid of annoying cod.

Since the AAM option is disabled by default, and for greater simplicity of the operation, we will resort to using a small WinAAM utility written specifically for this. I must say right away that this tool is completely free and does not require installation, it can work directly from the archive, which is available via . After starting this program, in the very first dialog, do not touch the security settings and click "Continue".

In the next window at the top, we see a message about disabled noise control and therefore click on the “Quiet / Standard (128)” button.

The utility will configure the hard drive accordingly and shut down automatically. By running it again and clicking on the "Continue" button, and then on "Check", we can observe a window with information about the movements of the magnetic head of the hard drive and draw a conclusion about the noise level with the new parameters - indeed, the hard drive has become much quieter.

A hard drive, also known as a "hard drive", is an important component of any computer. It has not only operating system, but important documents and files (music, video, photos) are also stored. Like any other component, over time it wears out and fails. And the main symptom of this is the appearance of noise and buzzing of the hard drive. In this case, the first thing to do is to avoid a sharp breakdown.

However, this may not always be the reason. An increased noise level also occurs with new drives of some manufacturers and models, and this is their normal operating condition.

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

AAM

Newer HDDs support special function « Automatic Acoustic Management”, with its help you can adjust the speed of movement of the reading heads, due to which the noise of the laptop hard drive will decrease.

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

I want to draw your attention to the fact that after setting the quiet mode, the speed of the drive also decreases. However, it is very difficult to see this by eye.

CrystalDiskInfo

If for some reason the previous program did not suit you or did not help, the hard drive is still noisy 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 has other useful features, for example, you can view detailed HDD parameters, current status, and check for errors.

So what's to be done:

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

There may be several reasons why there may be several reasons for CrystalDiskInfo:

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

How to diagnose the 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 buzzes during operation. As mentioned above, this is due to the moving mechanical heads, or rather their speed.

To do this, we will reduce the distance that they need to overcome in order to get to the desired section of the disk and read information from it. This is done quite simply, using the usual defragmentation. It will arrange 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 the necessary information, the load on it will decrease, and then the noise and buzz of the hard drive will decrease.

But you can also use the utility built into the system.:

Thus, we will get rid of the buzz and buzz of the drive.

Manual way

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

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

A hard drive is a key component of a computer that stores information. AT recent times more and more users are abandoning HDDs in favor of faster SSDs, but their cost still does not allow many to place all the necessary information on solid state drives.

Why are hard drives noisy?

It is generally accepted that the cooler is the noisiest component of a desktop computer and laptop. 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 yet replacement hard drive, you can perform its 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 work hard disk, mechanical heads move inside it, 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.

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 purchase a 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. Several materials on the site have already been devoted to the topic of reducing hard disk noise:

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 cooling 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 on the top cover of the 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, no restrictions are also 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

HDD, aka hard drive - makes noise, clicks and creaks. Why and what can be done.

Most HDD noise has sound waves in the range of 1 - 3 kHz and consists of noise from two different sources.

This is the noise of a hard drive generated by the rotation of its spindle and the friction of mechanical parts directly inside the hard drive. This noise can only be reduced by modifying the components of the hard drive.

Most of all, we hear noise caused by the vibration of the hard drive inside the computer case. This, in turn, consists of vibration from the rotation of the spindle, as well as vibration from the read / write heads, which accelerate and decelerate many times per second.

Clicks in the HDD, for example, are emitted by the positioner, at the moment of impact on the limiter. A working hard drive may make clicks due to the so-called thermal calibration, when the hard drive, in response to an increase in the temperature of the case and components, reinitializes the read / write head positioning system.

In addition, the hard drive also clicks from a bad, "rattling" or unstable power supply, when the heads go into the parking area and the HDD electronics restarts. Another reason why a working screw clicks may be putting the hard drive into sleep mode, and if such settings are explicitly specified in the system's power saving properties, then a similar effect can occur quite often. It makes sense to mention the offline scanning of the disk surface as one of the reasons why the HDD clicks. True in this case extraneous sounds from the hard drive will be due to bad sectors (bad blocks) of the hard drive, which off-line scanning tries to replace or exclude from the broadcast.

What to do?

Simply put, there are two ways to reduce the volume of sounds emitted by a hard drive - fix them in the case using soft fasteners that prevent the transfer of vibration from the hard drive to the case and use the Automatic Acoustic Management function.

"Squeak" - is it the rattling of the screw during operation or a constant hum? If the latter, then most likely a resonance. Tighten or tighten the hard drive mount. What if there are two? The screws one by one work silently, and together in the same case - the hum is worth it. We advise you to turn one of the screws upside down so that the rotation is in different directions. Turned over. The sound has decreased by 80%. It means it.

Not everyone knows that the user can change the characteristics of the hard drive using the acoustic control function, which allows you to modify data access profiles (access patterns) and change the default hard drive mode (fast) to quiet mode.

Run a utility like HD Tune Pro, enable AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) and put it in silent mode.

Download the Victoria program and use it to adjust the noise level of the hard drive (the noise is reduced by reducing the spindle speed).

All UltraATA/100 and Serial ATA based hard drives have an Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) feature, but you need special software tools to access it and be able to change its settings.

Sounds with a frequency of 1 kHz to 3 kHz are characterized by the greatest susceptibility, so noise reduction at these frequencies is more effective than at other frequencies. This is where acoustic control technology comes from.

Most of the sound waves in the range from 1 to 3 kHz consist of noise from two different sources. Firstly, this is the noise of the hard drive, generated by the rotation of its spindle and the friction of the mechanical parts directly inside the hard drive. This noise can only be reduced by modifying the components of the hard drive. But most of all we hear the noise caused by the vibration of the hard drive inside the computer case. This, in turn, consists of vibration from the rotation of the spindle, as well as vibration from the read / write heads, which accelerate and decelerate many times per second.

The fastest way to move the heads is to accelerate them to the middle of the path towards the new track and then decelerate the remainder of the path (so-called two-position search). There are many options for modifying this operation, ranging from the modification of acceleration and deceleration, as well as the required switching power supply. Adding Native Command Queuing here, which analyzes and reorders all incoming commands to find the most efficient order of read and write requests, helps reduce the amount of head movement, which can reduce access time and noise.

Now let's move on to analyzing the situation when the hard drive knocks due to a malfunction. As a rule, in this case, the positioning system, for one reason or another, is not able to receive signals from the hard disk heads, indicating that the head "sees" the servo markup. In this case, the hard drive creaks, whistles, knocks or makes other soul-exciting sounds. The actuator moves the block of heads across the entire available amplitude, hence the entire set. The HDD knocks even if there was a failure during the firmware loading process and it hung, preventing the processor from controlling the giblets of the screw. In all cases, when a hard drive knocks, qualified diagnostics are needed to determine the causes and develop an action strategy for successful data recovery from a knocking hard drive.

Winchester creaks or HDD makes noise.