Hard Drive Click and SMART Status

[Darge13]

I posted this over at the Apple forums but I don't how many of your are on those boards too.
I have had 2 MacBook Airs and I can't recall if the first one had the hard drive click. The second one does. I did some searching on apple website for some better smart tools and found this.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/smartutility.html
When I run this it says my drive is failing with over 1000 unknown errors, but when reading the attributes I seen no failing items. So I'm wondering if this is simply an incompatibility issue with the software or if the drive is truly dieing. Would anyone kindly try to run this application on their MacBook Air and report back?
Thanks
Tim

 

[Cybergypsy]

Something is wrong with the software....relax.....

 

[Darge13]

Were you able to try it on your Air? Other programs show me the same amount of errors in the SMART log of the drive. I noticed you posted your drive clicks once an hour, mine clicks once every 10-20 secs...

 

[Cybergypsy]

Were you able to try it on your Air? Other programs show me the same amount of errors in the SMART log of the drive. I noticed you posted your drive clicks once an hour, mine clicks once every 10-20 secs...

gave me error too but thik it bS.....

 

[squaremon]

i had 342 errors n all unknown mine has loud click every once awhile and small clicks every 5-20 mins

 

[Darge13]

Thats all I wanted to to know. I think its nothing. I have used some other SMART software to read the status and I get the same. When I read my log it time stamps it between 0 and 3 hours over and over. Thanks for the feedback. Oh did it also list the drive as failing at the bottom?

 

[ccantrell]

I agree and believe some of the 'error' stats might be reporting incorrectly in the current 1.1 version of this tool.

However, after noticing a lot of clicks from my drive, I ran this utility and noticed many 'bad sectors' under the attribute section. When I took it in tonight to the Apple store, they ran their newest diagnostic tool and it found the drive was indeed bad. They ended up just replacing my MBA. On a side note, the 'Verify Disk' under the Disk Utility reported nothing.

If you see bad sector errors, I would recommend taking it in and letting them check it out.

Best of luck,
-chris

 

[squaremon]

i ran a verify disk permission in disk utility and it shows this

ACL found but not expected on "Library".
ACL found but not expected on "Applications".
ACL found but not expected on "Applications/Utilities".

 

[ccantrell]

i ran a verify disk permission in disk utility and it shows this

ACL found but not expected on "Library".
ACL found but not expected on "Applications".
ACL found but not expected on "Applications/Utilities".

Mine also. I don't know if this is OK but I ran this on a fresh, new system.

 

[Critical Hippo]

Every time I access a document, I hear a click. The fan is silent. Everything else works fine. But there's a click, usually followed by a few more clicks. As long as I am surfing the web or doing something with the computer, I hear clicks. I would chalk this up to the normal sound of the system, but from these "clicking" threads I get the idea that other people are not hearing this sound.

So I'm going to go down to the Apple store and listen to their display models just to see whether other Airs make the same noise I'm hearing. I could care less whether the hard drive is failing or not; if my machine is making noises that other machines are not making, I'm having it replaced or returning it. I love this machine aside from the noise, but it is no good to me if it is going to drive me mad.

 

[Darge13]

Report back please. I believe the sound is the heads parking. I have read about this on other MacBook models. I did a surface scan and the drive was silent the whole time until the scan finished. I think the drive has an aggressive power management and is parking ASAP. I have looked into a program called hdapm but I get an error back that this drive does not support apm...

 

[squaremon]

Thats all I wanted to to know. I think its nothing. I have used some other SMART software to read the status and I get the same. When I read my log it time stamps it between 0 and 3 hours over and over. Thanks for the feedback. Oh did it also list the drive as failing at the bottom?

yea failing

 

[queshy]

My MBA hard drive "clicks" every 30s-1m or so quietly...but you can still hear it. I ran the tests in disk utility and it showed nothing. You won't be able to hear if it clicks in the apple store...way too noisy. What's the verdict on this? Are they defective or not? Is it normal for it to click like that?

 

[illian]

hey there,

well i can hear another sound...really high frequency(cpu-whining) especially when i use the touchpad and the cpu is idle. hope it won't get worse..

 

[Darge13]

My first Air had that squeal all the time. This new one does it on an off. Its like a beep.

 

[Darge13]

Try this test

Here another test. Try watching this video:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/30736.html?type=flv
and let me know if you have any pauses while it streams. Also state if you hear your drive click. I get a click and the video hiccups... BTW I didn't hear any clicks from the Airs on display at the Apple Store. I bet I looked silly resting my head on the key board....

 

[squaremon]

Here another test. Try watching this video:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/30736.html?type=flv
and let me know if you have any pauses while it streams. Also state if you hear your drive click. I get a click and the video hiccups... BTW I didn't hear any clicks from the Airs on display at the Apple Store. I bet I looked silly resting my head on the key board....

Did u use safari or firefox? MBA CPU burns when watching HD video with safari. Theres some random pauses while streams , kinda like slow frame rate. Was watching with firefox and cpu user go between 50-60% temp was 70c. A loud click after finishing the video.

 

[illian]

My first Air had that squeal all the time. This new one does it on an off. Its like a beep.

well i think we have to live with that.

the hdd click is just natural...all my small external hdds got it. if u want to get rid of it buy a ssd

someone tried to not let the hdd get into sleep-mode?

 

[MRU]

i ran a verify disk permission in disk utility and it shows this

ACL found but not expected on "Library".
ACL found but not expected on "Applications".
ACL found but not expected on "Applications/Utilities".

Mine also. I don't know if this is OK but I ran this on a fresh, new system.

THIS IS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MBA!! Just made that bold to make it perfectly clear that you are barking up the wrong tree.

That issue occurred on all my macs, and many many others, after updating to 10.5.2. Seems 10.5.2 quality control wasn't as good as it should have been.

It's obviously a remnant from that update and nothing to do with the MBA in particular.

 

[Darge13]

I used Safari. These were not random pauses. I would hear a click click and the video would pause. This was not a network issue either. CPU was fine too. I watched the same video on an older less powerful laptop and it played fine.

 

[squaremon]

I used Safari. These were not random pauses. I would hear a click click and the video would pause. This was not a network issue either. CPU was fine too. I watched the same video on an older less powerful laptop and it played fine.

What was the temp of ur cpu when u play that video?

 

[Darge13]

I never see it go above 80*C once the fans kick in.

 

[squaremon]

did ur cpu temp went up to 70c when watching that video?

 

[queshy]

When I first got the air while I was doing the updates the fan was reved up to 6000 rpm but after a restart it became whisper quiet (2500 rpm) and never shot back up since...

As for the clicks, i get them every 30s or so. If you turn on an iPod and put it up to your ear you get the same thing...I'm assuming it's something the hard drive does because of its nature/size. I hope I'm right...I need to know so I can return it if I need to.

 

[squaremon]

When I first got the air while I was doing the updates the fan was reved up to 6000 rpm but after a restart it became whisper quiet (2500 rpm) and never shot back up since...

As for the clicks, i get them every 30s or so. If you turn on an iPod and put it up to your ear you get the same thing...I'm assuming it's something the hard drive does because of its nature/size. I hope I'm right...I need to know so I can return it if I need to.

me2