Powerbook, 7200 rpm drive, beeps

[LeeTom]

Hi,
When I bought my powerbook, I upgraded the hard drive to a 60GB 7200rpm hitachi drive, and replaced the 2x256 RAM sticks with 2x512 Crucial sticks.

After I put the new hard drive in, it started beeping randomly, like a PC beeps when it turns on. Usually two beeps in a row, sometimes 3 groups of two beeps, or anywhere in between, totally randomly. They didn't happen at boot time, as happens with memory errors.

I replaced all the crucial ram with the original Apple ram. Still beeped.

I replaced the 7200rpm drive for another identical drive. Still beeped.

I put back the original 4200rpm drive... Beeping stopped.

My only guess: my power supply couldn't quite handle the speed, and the power management system was letting me know that there wasn't enough power to sustain everything properly. Is this correct?

I would love to solve this issue and have a 7200rpm drive in my Powerbook...
Everyone else I've heard from has done this successfully with no problems.

Thanks!
Lee Tom

 

[LeeTom]

i always hate this, but... BUMP!

anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!

 

[EminenceGrise]

Check the drive specs

Your 7200RPM drive is probably pulling too much current when it spins up when you first turn on your Powerbook. The added power draw is probably interfering with the 'POST' (Power On Self Test - a PC term, but Macs do the same thing even if it's called something different), or possibly the Power Manager (that handles the battery charging, etc.), which is causing the beeping; the beeping probably varies because it's causing the POST to fail at a slightly different point (RAM check, CPU check, etc.) each time you start the Powerbook (resulting in a different error code). You could try to get a hold of an Apple sevice manual that might explain the beep error codes, but it's not likely to help you solve anything, since you've already narrowed it down to the 7200RPM drive, and the codes reported aren't always the same.

Look up the specs on your 7200RPM drive and compare the power draw to the stock 4200RPM unit, or the 5400RPM units Apple supplies. You want to look for "peak current draw" or "peak power consumption" and compare them. The 7200RPM drive should not be significantly more than the stock units, if it is, try to find a different model with power consumption comparable to the stock Apple stuff (it would be better to compare to an Apple 5400RPM supplied drive, if you can find out what model they use and the specs, as the 5400RPM model will use more power than the 4200RPM but still be within Apple's specs). If the power consumption looks like it should be OK, you may have a defective drive. Also don't forget to make sure you've hooked everything up the right way and not bent pins, etc., but I'm assuming you've already done this. You might also see if anyone else who has installed a 7200RPM drive can give you the model number of the unit they used... not all drives are alike.

 

[LeeTom]

Hey,
One point that might change your idea... The beep NEVER happened during POST time, only while it was on, and while I was using it. Also, I've read posts of people that have installed identical drives in their Powerbooks with no problems. Also, I've been very careful, and am positive I installed it correctly, both times, with two separate drives.

Lee Tom

 

[ffactory]

my PBook 12's combo drive started occasionally beeping after i installed an apple-recommended firmware update... er, at least i think that's my combo drive... but everything else in this is stock (unfortunately), so i'm pretty sure that's all it is in my case.

good luck!

 

[EminenceGrise]

Hey,
One point that might change your idea... The beep NEVER happened during POST time, only while it was on, and while I was using it.

Oops - I misread the part of your post where you said it didn't happen at boot, I thought you couldn't even get the PB booted.

Hmm. It may still be power related though. You could try reseting the Power Manager on your Powerbook (it can't hurt) - how to do it varies by machine, but digging around on Apple's site should come up with something on how it's done for your model. Sometimes the PM can get flaky and cause problems. Does it happen when the drive spins up (or down) when it's in power save mode, or when you are doing anything CPU (or GPU) intensive? Does changing the CPU speed settings change anything (e.g. Min, Max, Automatic)? That may indicate whether it really is a power draw problem or not, if it only happens when the whole machine is working harder (and thus, using more power). It's possible that when your Powerbook was built it passed the standard tests, but can't reliably handle the power load of the 7200RPM drive; whereas the others that have worked are OK even with the faster drive. Have you noticed any heat problems - that might also be a problem for any components in the PB that are marginal. As the other poster suggested it could be a firmware incompatibility as well - Hitachi may have changed the firmware revision and that could be causing problems that don't show up in slightly older drives with older firmware. I think you can get the firmware version from System Profiler - but you'd need something to compare it to.... I can't help you there. Those are the only things I can come up with - quite an interesting problem.