Samsung SP2504C

Darkusmanus · 3 Feb 2007 at 23:26

Has anyone ordered one of these drives in the last couple of weeks and been experiencing any problems with excessive vibration/noise??

I have recently rebuilt my pc and bought a new mobo/graphics card and HD so that i could build a new machine without trashing my existing set up, my old setup has a 160g samsung drive which has been a great drive, very quite with no issues.

The new one I ordered appear to be ok when laid flat on the bench whilst I built the new pc but when I came to putting it all into the case and the drive goes on it's side into the Lian li drive holder it was then I discovered it buzzes and vibrates, so much so that i can hear it outside the case and indeed it' was loud enough to be heard over the top of my headphones. It still does this if it's put on it's side outside of the case with me just holding the drive against my desk.

So I thought I have a duff drive i'll order another one and rma this one, the new one arrived today (paid 18 quid shipping :mad:

) and suffers the same fault so I am worried now that there is a duff batch of these drives.

Trying to decide what to do now and thinking of going for a different size drive but sticking with samsung again and will have to rma both these 250g ones.

Darkusmanus · 3 Feb 2007 at 23:45

ok I used the search on this forum like I should have done before posting this and it seems others have had exactly the same problem as me with this particular drive. I guess a call to the tech department will be in order now and will have to order a new disk in the mean time, does anyone know of any problems with the 320GB samsung spinpoints before I dive in.

photoshop · 4 Feb 2007 at 01:00

This is not a problem with the drives. The hard drives are perfectly fine.

The noise/vibration is "resonanse" caused by different frequencies. The vibrations are caused because you are fixing them in with screws and the energy from the spinning drive is passed ontothe case.

Use plastic screws if you can. The other method is to suspend them using wire so they appear to be floating. I have done this many times and it works a treat.

Also, if you have more than 1 drive in the case, make sure they are not close to each other (if they are stacked like formation in the case then leave atleast a gap of 15mm)

i personally just rest my hard drives on a piece of foam at the bottom of the case (case is akasa eclipse 62). This way there is no vibrations or humming noise as the energy from the hard drive is obsorbed by the foam. The foam is a very very poor conductor of sound and therefore dampens out any vibrations so they not pass onto the case.

What you have to remember is that hard drives are moving/spinning internally all the time and when they are attached to the case the vibrations are passed on. this is what causes the humming noise also.

Not all hard drives suffer from this. Only certain onces but you would have to try all of them to know which do and dont unfortunetly.
Generally, samsung drives are the quietest from my experience.

Ive got a samsung ATA and a maxtor SATA (maxtor has accoustic noise reduction turned on) and both are really quiet.
But i cant comment on the new samsung SATAs as i have not tried them.

Darkusmanus · 4 Feb 2007 at 20:01

I am well aware of how a hard drive works and I also have had 3 samsung drives up to press that do not exhibit this problem. It is not possible in the lian li case to do what you suggest as the caddy at the bottom of the case fits the drives exactly when they are on their side, it holds 5 drives when full and allows the front fans of the case to blow cold air over the drives. I only have 2 drives in the caddy at the moment, a samsung 160gb drive that is silent and one of the 250gb samsungs that is only silent if you turn it to lay flat. I am going to rma them anyway as undue vibration in a hard drive is not acceptable to me and I dont want to start messing with my case just to make these drive behave as they should.

Perhaps i am not being clear about the vibration when i say it shakes the case and the desk that the case is sat on and this is a big heavy desk, I can barely lift the desk so anything that can make it vibrate is not spinning balanced in my book.

photoshop · 4 Feb 2007 at 21:24

you can send that samsung back till the cows come home but each will transmit that vibration everytime.

blik · 4 Feb 2007 at 22:54

I'm afraid to say I had the same problem with that drive, made my shuttle sn25p resonate thru to the desk and even the v1000+ i transfered it to. Ended up just putting it in a caddy and replacing it with a seagate 320. Much better now, and only have to put up with the vibration when i need to use the caddy

Darkusmanus · 5 Feb 2007 at 00:20

I agree that the 250gb may vibrate no matter which one i get but the 160's dont do it so maybe one of the other sizes will be ok thinking of going for a 320 unless anyone says they suffer the same problem or maybe an entirely diff brand may be in order. Maybe I have justbeen lucky in the past but I have never had this issue with a drive before and I have been messing with pc's for 10 yrs and fitted countless different drives. anyway not going to argue the toss here. Bottom line is this drive doesnt meet expectations.