PC clicking noise

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by Halloween Jack, Aug 19, 2014.

  1. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Hi folks,

    I've just moved 2 HDDs and 1 SSD from my old rig to my new one.

    First off Windows warned me of a drive failure. After a post here I got Hard Disk Sentinel which told me one of the HDDs had failed to engage 233 times or something like that. A while later the drive disappeared from the page in 'This PC'

    I thought maybe it was a connection issue rather than failure (its about 2 years old but seemed a coincidence to fail right as I'd upgraded)

    I reset the SATA and power cables and the disk came back.

    Sentinel said it was fine.

    Then I noticed this clicking. It's probably been there since the build.

    It seems to happen randomly when I open windows. I can't seem to tie it down.

    So I thought it was the drive after all. So disconnected adn booted it but the clicking still there.

    Weirdly it seemed to go when I disconnected the other HDD. But surely that's a crazy coincidence.

    So I'm not sure what to try now.

    I wondered perhaps if I shouldn't have used the new SATA cables (with white bits) on my old drives. I thought SATA where all interchangable but maybe my older drives aren't happy with something in the new build..

    Or maybe they're both failing?

    It's a very intermittent click so I don't think it can be a fan.

    I fact the one thing that always makes it click is starting Sentinel and preing 'Repeat Test'

    Any ideas?
     
  2. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    Clicking is generally HDDs, possibly you have a mixture of a failing drive and a faulty SATA cable which is confusing things

    If you imagine a record player, that's basically what is inside of a HDD, and the clicking is the read arm not finding the track it's supposed to lock onto and read, and bounces back and forth against its locking position, metal on metal makes the click noise

    Test each drive one at a time, with a SATA cable you believe to be good
     
  3. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Yeah good plan. I think the confusion was getting the better of me.

    Or was it the fact I didn't want to mess up my nice tidy new cables yet again...

    I'll dig out my old cables from the last rig.

    Thanks for the help.
     
  4. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Also can anyone recommend a new 2 or 3TB HDD? I've been googling for hours and everyone I look at has someone saying it makes weird noises or clicks.

    Can't seem to find a drive that stands out.

    Cheers
     

  5. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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  6. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    (After googling Intel RST 13)

    Why yes it is!

    Sorry mate, tried to get through those pages but I'd have to google 2/3 of it.

    Could you give me the gist of it?

    What's the easiest solution?

    Thanks :)
     
  7. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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    uninstall RST, turn off pc (psu cable) and switch sata ports around (if you had sata2 switch to sata3 port, etc), power pc back on and install RST 12.9.4.


    One guy said its enough just to unplug psu cable and then back. But first you must uninstall intel Rapid storage 13.x.xxx driver.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2014
  8. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Great thx. Will try that.
     
  9. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Hi again,

    I've uninstalled RST, powered down, swapped leads and SATA ports for good measure and clicking has gone.

    Yay!

    But... I downloaded SetupRST and then driver files for 12.9.0.1001 for Win 8.1 as I still can't find 12.9.4 anywhere.

    When I click on SetupRST it tells me

    ''The setup program ended prematurely because of the following error:
    This platform is not supported.''

    Any ideas?

    Cheers
     
  10. snip3r_3

    snip3r_3 Guest

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    Hard drive clicking won't go away with uninstalling Intel RST. If it is a hardware issue and not simply the drives being spun down, you'll still get it back sooner or later. I do suggest you to back up anything important just in case.

    In the meantime, if it has completely stopped, then it will be the spin down issue that Tj posted, if its a continuous clicking, find a new hard drive or wait for a RMA.

    Regarding RST install issues, it requires your board be set to RAID mode to install.

    There isn't really a solid model or brand of hard drives. Every OEM has its issues and it really comes down to your luck due to most drives being tossed around during transport (blame the UPS/Fedex guys). However, you can get a general idea of the quirks each model has by reading the reviews. Do note that people generally only post reviews when they have issues (amount of posts per angry user is much greater than post rate of happy users). There are always a scary amount of feedback for any brand/model of hard drives.

    Therefore, I suggest you to find a good priced drive, and then look for different ones with a higher warranty or spec (depending on what you want to use it for). Some drives don't play nice with RAID (most WD Greens) while some drives are noisier (WD Blacks, 10K drives, etc.). Most consumer drives carry a 2 year warranty now with higher end models costing more and carrying 3 or 5 year ones. However, length of warranty is not a good indication of quality or reliability. Always back up your important data or invest in RAID 1/5/etc.
     

  11. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Hi there,

    The clicking does seem to have gone. Still haven't heard it.

    Most of my data is on a NAS these internal drives hold backups and installed programs but thanks for the sound warning.

    So RST requires RAID to install? Why was it running before?

    I don't think I'll ever use RAID internally. More tempted to get a proper NAS with it running.

    But I did read that RST is still advantageous to non RAID arrays so I'm a bit confused now.

    Thanks for the HDD tips. I didn't know WD Blacks were noisy. Anyway hopefully I won't need an HDD for now. Fingers crossed.

    Cheers
     
  12. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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  13. snip3r_3

    snip3r_3 Guest

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    I don't think those are named correctly. RST is the name of Intel's software RAID and application that handles RAID (and it only includes RAID drivers). He just needs Intel Chipset Device Software (INF) which contains everything.

    From Intel
    for Chipset/INF (AHCI, USB, PCI, etc.)
    https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=20775&lang=eng&ProdId=816

    These are RST (RAID only)
    https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24006&lang=eng&ProdId=2101
     
  14. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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    what? :)
    He was asking if he needs to set to raid and use raid driver, I meant there no, use ahci and install that 12.9.4 ahci driver.


    I have that installed too atm.. Or was it 12.9.3.
     
  15. snip3r_3

    snip3r_3 Guest

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    Yeah, I think I got confused. But yeah, he doesn't need RAID as it doesn't offer any advantages over AHCI if he doesn't use its features. :)

    But RST in general I think is RAID only. The link you posted though, shows RST but contains AHCI drivers which made me confused. Intel's own RST packages won't install if you aren't on RAID mode and don't contain any AHCI drivers.
     

  16. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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    Its not, there is a RAID specific yes, but usually it had RAID mentioned in them. Btw default windows 8 driver is RST 9.5.x.xxxx or default default windows Ahci.sys

    Im using this RST 12.9 because it can control c-states with dynamic storage accelerator, also I have better 4k 32Q reads/writes on SSD vs default intel.
     
  17. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Well that's cleared that up ;)

    err... actually getting more confused I'm afraid.

    I definitely uninstalled RST 13.x.x and clicking has stopped.

    Thx Tj but I still get the same error message with that exe.

    Sorry for my ignorance (I just wanted the clicking to stop! :) ) but I'm not familar with AHCI.

    Am i missing a step or something obvious here.

    Tj, I clicked on your link, downloaded the zip. Unzipped to get SetupRST.exe and then simply clicked on it.
     
  18. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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    Last edited: Aug 20, 2014
  19. Halloween Jack

    Halloween Jack Maha Guru

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    Thanks. It'll take me a while to check through that (but I did run as admin)

    I'll post back.

    Thanks for all your help
     

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