Hard drive noise

Question

Hi, I jut got my new XPS 1530M and it seems to be a great laptop but I'm a little annoyed but a couple things and wondering if you all have similar issues and whether it's normal or not.   1.) The hard drive seems to make noise making a read about once a second so you hear it click when it reads.  It clicks like 1 x per second even when the computer is just sitting there doing nothing.  Is this normal?  It's annoying because you can hear it click every second.  My computer is pretty much stock without any new software loaded except MS Office 2003.   2.) The fan turning on makes a lot of noise   3.) it gets warm at the bottom of the drive and on my left hand (maybe where the hard drive is).   4.) What is the difference between the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Centrino Duo?  Which is better/faster and uses less battery?  I'm upgrading from a Dell Lattitude D600 with the Centrino.  I really like this computer but needed to upgrade.   Other than these minor things this laptop has been a good bargain. Thanks for all your help. Paul   XPS M1530: Core 2 Duo T7500, 3GRam 250G 5400rpm HD, bluetooth, Intel Wireless N, PC-cillin, webcam, finger print.

realadry · Answer

I own a m1330 but it's pretty similar to the m1530

1) got that too, this is because of Vista. Already tried everything but I can't get rid of the hdd activity. Probably the hdd is too slow.

4) centrino is just the name for the "platform". That means chipset, cpu and wifi from intel = centrino

Message Edited by realadry on 01-06-2008 12:36 PM

db09 · Answer

One thing that you can do for the hard drive noise is go into the BIOS and change the hardrive from the factory setting to the quieter one.  It will take longer to boot but i did this and have the 7.2k HDD and really noticed no difference in boot time or performance but it is quieter.  The heat i am not sure about; i am typing this with my XPS M1530 sitting on my lap and it has been for an hour or so and the area to the left of the touchpad above the HDD is 86.5 degrees F and the bottom is 98 degrees.

Paul0727 · Answer

Thanks for the info so far.  I will try the 'quiet' hard drive setting in the bios and see.   Paul

Paul0727 · Answer

I tried changing the bios to quiet mode.  It is quietter but it still makes the periodic hard drive reads every second.  I thinking about the last post being a windows vista thing in which case I may want to install windows xp again.   Paul

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Hard drive noise

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