Samsung Spinpoint F3 1tb consitent hum/vibration

[4trees]

Want to hear from those that have a Samsung Spinpoint f3 hdd. Is it quiet or do you hear any constant and consistent noise?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

I recently installed this hdd and noticed a slight vibration on my desk as well as a faint hum coming from the tower. I unplugged the samsung and rebooted to see if the noise would disappear and it did. I want to stress it is quite faint but when it is doing it I can't help but notice it. The frequency of the noise/vibration is about 1 second or less.

I'm leaning toward RMA but I wanted to get an idea if this is typical for this model, my older WD hdd doesn't do this so my experience is that this is not normal.

btw this is just a 2nd drive for backup purposes only.

 

[The Herbsman]

I've got exactly the same noise coming from my Samsung HD103SJ 1TB. I have just received a replacement only to confirm the same noise. I am now thinking of calling Samsung to ask if they can replace it with a model in which (hopefully) they have rectified the problem. The hum is a nightmare. It is soft but reverberates though the whole house upstairs, downstairs.

 

[ris2t]

Case = NZXT.
Samsung HD103UJ 1000GB

Chose the Samsung based upon reviews but similar issues to those reported here. Constant low pitch oscillating hum that just seems to vibrate through every thing, really noticable at night from different rooms.

I spent a fair amount of time tyring to quieten with little success. Seemed worse when other drives in the same case but it was the primary case.

internal hard drive enclosures
rubber mounts
even elastic suspension, thought that would do the trick but no somehow vibration still transfered to chasis. Not as bad though but bad enough.

I suspect case design has an influence, with the sides off noise is down but sides are imported for airflow so thats was practical.

Eventually replaced with WD caviar green. Slower but quiet was the priority.

 

[Guest]

I purchased a couple of spinpoint F4 drives for my new build. At first I thought I was crazy. It took me awhile to pinpoint the noise, but it's the same as others. I have a couple of Seagates in another machine and I always thought they were noisy. Whenever they're active, you here clicky click, but that doesn't bother me. These F4s with the constant hum-hum-hum is enough to drive you crazy. It's like water being dripped on my forehead. I think when people say these drives are quite, they're talking about when the drive are active (you really can't hear that) It's the vibration they make from the disc spinning that makes me say: "I'm sending them back"

 

[x3style]

Hello i have this HD and I am thinking last models have problems... I noticed same issues with noise and run tests in HDD Tune Pro... I had made a RMA with my seller and they changes it.

New one and old have same issue... Noise sometimes with HD Activity and noise during this tests...

I will show the screens old one and new:

Old model (Made RMA and seller accepted) HD Tune PRO (2 test):

[url]http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7424/ultimohdtune.png[/URL]

[url]http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9886/capturahdtunebenchmarkl.png[/URL]


HD Tach:

[url]http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3397/hdtachtest.png[/URL]

Look at these minimun speeds seems HD doesn´t work well at the big changes, more noise.

New model have same issues it come to me today:

HD Tune:

[url]http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/6573/capturahdtune40.th.png[/URL]

HD Tach:

[url]http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8798/hdtach3captura.png[/URL]


Where do you buy your HD?? I bough mine in Spain 11/01/2010 and this come today.

Sorry for my english i am very bad with it hope that you can understad me...

And thank you this is my first message in this forum.

Greetings.

Your graphs are pretty consitent with mine are you using one fo those gadgets to onitor HDD temperature trough frecvent SMART reading.

I'd recomend to see my thread here http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=14&post=261529&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

Maybe you hav ethe same problem maybe not but its worth a look.

 

[bnot]

For people complaining the drive is too loud/too much vibration use this tool samsung provide to enable AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management)

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/utilities/ES_Tool.html

 

[SPreston2001]

Wow im happy I found this thread. I too have the same humming vibration coming from my Samsung 1tb F3 drive. I was seriously considering a RMA but after reading this thread its good to know its common amongst these drives. I have this drive in my machine upstairs and the humming sound can be heard from the lower level of my house. Its not really loud, but if your sitting in a silent room your can hear the faint 1 sec interval hums. I think I will eventually sell this drive and get a 1.5tb Western Digital because this humming sound can get pretty annoying when browsing the web late at night. I will try to run the Samsung ES Tool provided in the post above and see if that helps.

 

[SPreston2001]

Ok so I just got finished running the ES Tool and set the AAM to quiet and man did it help ALOT! I can still hear the faint hum, but its much better than before! Thanks bnot for the helpful information!

 

[SPreston2001]

Probably so, but I only use this drive for storage so its no biggie. I still plan on replacing it with a 2TB Seagate, but turning on the AAM made the drive more tolerable.

 

[39fj3tgds]

MY SOLUTION

I just fixed a deep noise / hum / drone / vibration with my Samsung F3 too.

This is how I did it:

I got a few sheets of BUBBLE WRAP and put my computer on top of it. The bubbles absorb all of the vibration so now I cannot hear a thing!!

It was a real problem, a very deep but audible sound. Even my flatmates were complaining about it! This bubble wrap fix has solved the issue completely.

I hope this has helped someone!!

 

[Sofubar]

Another F3 owner here, 500gig version, my hum started today, unbelievably irritating. I've tried a lot of in-case vibration killers, rubber HDD screw mounts, rubber on the case door corners yackidy yack, all made zero difference! But this answer is great, I shoved some packaging material under the PC and the hum has reduced more than anything I've tried so far, it's still there though, but it's helped.

Very disappointed as the reviews for this drive were fantastic and my experience has been great for the last 6 months or so of owning it until today, I think I'll end up selling it. Big fan of Samsung products in general so feel pretty let down by this one, everyone makes mistakes though.

 

[bnot]

Disappointing to read about these humming issues still affecting Samsung drives. I have something like four year old 200 gb Samsung hard drive and it's practically unusable because of the hum and resonating it produces. Nothing but a source of annoyance. Of course it's been in the closet for years now, wouldn't even wanna sell it to anyone.

 

[CaptSkip8]

I'd like to add my experiences with this 'acoustic' issue from some Samsung HDDs, in my case, the Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB model.

I have at least two of these specific models, maybe more, in multiple builds, and I like these Samsung drives a bunch.

For me, the acoustic issue was a hum or more accurately, a tone, that 'waves' in and out, in about 1 second time frames...continuously. It is a specific tone/frequency (someone with perfect-pitch could nail it down) that has the ability to drive you insane if your working quietly.

I have determined that for my builds, the hum/tone can be greatly reduced or in some cases, eliminated completely, by the internal case mounting techniques and orientation.

When I first installed a new Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB in my latest build within an Antec P183 V3 case, the annoying tone was very obvious. In this Antec case (designed and marketed for quiet operation) are two HDD cages, the recomended lower cage in the power supply compartment for up to 4, 3.5inch HDDs in vertical orientation, and a second (horizontally mounted) cage for SSDs (or HDDs) in the main MB compartment. Four very soft silicone grommets cushion between each HDD and the mounting cages, the special mounting screws attach to the HDD through the silicone grommets. The very noticable hum/tone from the HDD was completely eliminated by a bit more tightening down of the HDD mounting screws, to compress the silicone grommets just a tad more than when first mounted. I believe I erred by not tightening them down enough...the drive was too loose in the cage...also I insured the second time the drive was a true vertical - 90 degrees.

From the Antec manual...Don’t over-tighten the screws as this will reduce the vibration and noise dampening ability of the silicone grommets. I found the "just-right spots" in mounting screw and grommet tension/compression on my second attempt at mounting the HDD. The tone is absolutely gone.

Previously, I'd only heard these hums/tones faintly from the Samsung HDDs I've installed. This latest experience convinces me to consider altering HDD orientation and mounting parameters before RMAing a HDD exhibiting these acoustic anomalies. That may be all that's required to solve the issue.

[As a side note, I had a very similar annoying acoustic issue with a Cavalry CAUM37320 320GB External HDD, that sits vertically on my desk in its supplied plactic table stand, but now on top of a couple of folds of non-supplied, randomly selected bubble-wrap, that keeps it quiet!]

Hope this helps!

 

[4trees]

Its been a while since I checked out this thread. Seems like a lot of you have experienced the same issue so clearly we are not being overly critical with this vibration. Samsung has confirmed problem here. Im glad most of you have concluded with a solution, that's good news. For me, Im sticking to Western Digital despite the slightly lesser specs.

4trees

 

[Guest]

I have similar problem.

Originally, I had Samsung drive (HD103SJ, 1TB, 7200 rpm) and my computer was pretty quiet. Today I bought WD (WD10EALX, 1TB, 7200 rpm) and after installation a humming began appearing and disappearing roughly once per second. Firstly I thought WD is source of the noise. But after removing it from the rack and holding it loosely in the hand (connected) it was quietly working. I repeated this with Samsung - the same result: Samsung worked quietly when held in the hand.

Explanation is obvious - resonance between both disks. Theoretically, if disk A has frequency of the vibrations 7200 Hz and disk B 7201 Hz, then humming with frequency 1 Hz will appear with the loudness being the sum of the original two frequencies.

Therefore it is not problem of the disk, but the combination of them.
The computer box should be made to solve it, but typical boxes are far from this.

The solution is problematic - try to not fasten the disks to the rack to isolate them from each other.
I put one of the disks on the pieces of rubber - humming is significantly weaker, but I still hear it.