PowerBook HD "clicking"

[parrotbeak]

I just purchased a new 12.1" 133Ghz PowerBook with the SuperDrive. It's only a couple of weeks old, and I'm questioning my sanity. I've noticed a quiet, yet audible click that sounds like the read/write head making a brief jump and it seems to happen with some regularity (a few times a minute). I don't remember hearing it when I first got the machine, but I could just be getting used to hearing the disk work. S.M.A.R.T. says that all's well and all the Dick Utility diagnostics are good too.

Is this normal behavior or am I just being too sensitive to what is generally a very quiet machine?

 

[yamabushi]

The HD will normally make some noise but if the clicking sound is excessively loud on a regular basis it could mean the HD is in serious trouble and may need replacement. A soft "ticking" or "whirring" sound is normal. A loud "clacking" sound is not.

 

[Celeron]

I've noticed that on my 12'' rev B. Powerbook also. It seems largely related to the hard drive going to sleep and waking back up causing the heads to zip from the landing zone to some area on the disk. If it really bothers you you can go into the Power options and turn off the option that lets your hard drive sleep when possible. The power savings are likely to be minimal because these drives use such little power already.

 

[Jo-Kun]

I had it on my former Ti-Book, then I got Jaguar on it, and it went more silent, later on I put Panther on it and it was gone (note: i did a clean install with formatting each time...)

now I don't have that Pb anymore, but I recently got an old iBook, and that one makes that zound each time I do updates or installing programs, for the rest... no clicking...