Hard drive making constant noise when idle?

[Marktehbuilder]

I noticed my computer is louder than usual. I took off each of the fans to see which is causing the noise. That's how I realized it was my hard drive that is loud. Once I turn my computer on and leave it on without doing anything, it runs at a loud volume. I can't stand it. It's not loud enough to hear from another room. But loud enough to drive me crazy sitting next to it with no other noise in my room. I would really appreciate help. Thanks.

 

[Tech_TTT]

old hard disk I suppose ? which model ?

 

[Marktehbuilder]

old hard disk I suppose ? which model ?

Western Digital Caviar Blue. It's not that old. I got it with the rest of my computer in summer 2015.

 

[Tech_TTT]

old hard disk I suppose ? which model ?

Western Digital Caviar Blue. It's not that old. I got it with the rest of my computer in summer 2015.

was it that noisy before ? and how is the noise ? read/write noise ? or just idle noise?

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I'm not yet convinced it's coming from the hard drive - - - there are just too many other possible culprits in close proximity to it.

The definitive test - - unplug the hard drive's power cable and see whether or not the noise has stopped.

 

[Marktehbuilder]

old hard disk I suppose ? which model ?

Western Digital Caviar Blue. It's not that old. I got it with the rest of my computer in summer 2015.

was it that noisy before ? and how is the noise ? read/write noise ? or just idle noise?

It was not as noisey as it was when I first put the computer together. It's a constant running noise that happens once the computer is turned on.

 

[Tech_TTT]

old hard disk I suppose ? which model ?

Western Digital Caviar Blue. It's not that old. I got it with the rest of my computer in summer 2015.

was it that noisy before ? and how is the noise ? read/write noise ? or just idle noise?

It was not as noisey as it was when I first put the computer together. It's a constant running noise that happens once the computer is turned on.

could be from the Motor ... if there is no read/write activity , then it is the motor itself. try unplug it as Phillip said and see if the noise stays or not

 

[Marktehbuilder]

old hard disk I suppose ? which model ?

Western Digital Caviar Blue. It's not that old. I got it with the rest of my computer in summer 2015.

was it that noisy before ? and how is the noise ? read/write noise ? or just idle noise?

It was not as noisey as it was when I first put the computer together. It's a constant running noise that happens once the computer is turned on.

could be from the Motor ... if there is no read/write activity , then it is the motor itself. try unplug it as Phillip said and see if the noise stays or not

I unplugged the sata and power cables and turned on my PC to make sure that it was the hard drive that was making the noise. I plugged the cables back and it is still making the same noise. Should I get a new hard drive?

 

[Marktehbuilder]

I'm not yet convinced it's coming from the hard drive - - - there are just too many other possible culprits in close proximity to it.

The definitive test - - unplug the hard drive's power cable and see whether or not the noise has stopped.

I did just that. I unplugged each fan at a time to know where the noise was coming from. Once I unplugged the hard drive, the computer was much quieter. It makes this noise while nothing is being read. It's constant,

 

[helpstar]

Does it vibrate with the case? All 4 screws are well tightened?

 

[Tech_TTT]

old hard disk I suppose ? which model ?

Western Digital Caviar Blue. It's not that old. I got it with the rest of my computer in summer 2015.

was it that noisy before ? and how is the noise ? read/write noise ? or just idle noise?

It was not as noisey as it was when I first put the computer together. It's a constant running noise that happens once the computer is turned on.

could be from the Motor ... if there is no read/write activity , then it is the motor itself. try unplug it as Phillip said and see if the noise stays or not

I unplugged the sata and power cables and turned on my PC to make sure that it was the hard drive that was making the noise. I plugged the cables back and it is still making the same noise. Should I get a new hard drive?

yes it is better to get new one .. you dont want to loose sensitive Data out of the sudden .

 

[Marktehbuilder]

Does it vibrate with the case? All 4 screws are well tightened?

I took a look inside and saw that a screw was missing. I screwed it back so that the drive is firmly in place. I'm not sure how much that helped. Another noise making thing in my computer that worries me is that cpu usage spikes to 10-30% for seemingly basic things like clicking on a new web page. And I have an I7 4790k. Is this normal?

 

[helpstar]

Which motherboard are you using?

Did you install windows with this system?

Is it overclocked?

Boxed cooler installed or a better one?

 

[Marktehbuilder]

helpstar

I installed Windows 8.1 and upgraded to 10. Motherboard is ASUS Z 97a. Heatsink is Cryorg H7.

 

[helpstar]

I assume it´s not overclocked then

Bios up to date of the motherboard?

temperature is fine? use coretemp and prim95 version 26.6 with option smallfft (run for about 10min.)

 

[marsalan_tahir]

I know this thread is old but I came across a solution and wanted to share. This guy here says:

Situation
I had the same problem in Windows 10: after about 5 minutes of system idle, there was a lot of disk activity on data disks (non swap, just data files), which disappeared on just a single mouse move.

The Task Manager didn't show much. The Resource Monitor did show that svhost was causing the disk activity, but didn't show which sub service of it was causing it.

Process Explorer ( https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx ) does show the sub services. After about 5 minutes of mouse/keyboard idle, defrag.exe started under svchost.

Solution
You can disable it (scheduled defragmentation, the cause) via the Task Scheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Defrag > then disable the "ScheduledDefrag". Disabling it removed the problem on my system.

Explanation
Defrag is used to defragment the hard disk. For example, a file can be stored in multiple fragment spread over the hard disk. When the file is read, the hard disk head has to physically move to all the fragments sequentially, which requires some time and thus costs some performance. The defrag process moves the fragments to optimal locations, so that the hard disk head has to move less physical distance, which improves hard disk read and write performance.

Windows starts the defrag process automatically using the Task Scheduler when you idle for 5 minutes, but you can also manually start defrag: right click on a drive letter > Properties > Tools > Optimize. The fragmentation percentage indicates whether there is a need to defrag.

SSDs don't need to be defragmented, because there is no physical head movement. Using defrag on a SSD lowers the life expectancy of a SSD.

Source: https://superuser.com/questions/923457/hdd-activity-when-computer-is-idle

 

[gogopc]

I know this thread is old but I came across a solution and wanted to share. This guy here says:

Situation
I had the same problem in Windows 10: after about 5 minutes of system idle, there was a lot of disk activity on data disks (non swap, just data files), which disappeared on just a single mouse move.

The Task Manager didn't show much. The Resource Monitor did show that svhost was causing the disk activity, but didn't show which sub service of it was causing it.

Process Explorer ( https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx ) does show the sub services. After about 5 minutes of mouse/keyboard idle, defrag.exe started under svchost.

Solution
You can disable it (scheduled defragmentation, the cause) via the Task Scheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Defrag > then disable the "ScheduledDefrag". Disabling it removed the problem on my system.

Explanation
Defrag is used to defragment the hard disk. For example, a file can be stored in multiple fragment spread over the hard disk. When the file is read, the hard disk head has to physically move to all the fragments sequentially, which requires some time and thus costs some performance. The defrag process moves the fragments to optimal locations, so that the hard disk head has to move less physical distance, which improves hard disk read and write performance.

Windows starts the defrag process automatically using the Task Scheduler when you idle for 5 minutes, but you can also manually start defrag: right click on a drive letter > Properties > Tools > Optimize. The fragmentation percentage indicates whether there is a need to defrag.

SSDs don't need to be defragmented, because there is no physical head movement. Using defrag on a SSD lowers the life expectancy of a SSD.

Source: https://superuser.com/questions/923457/hdd-activity-when-computer-is-idle

THANK YOU! THIS DEFINITELY WORKS!!!