For those of you out there with vibrating hard drives i'd just like to let you know, you're not alone. I've had this problem for awhile an have a pretty good handle on how to eliminate it.

I wouldn't recommend you try any of these methods unless you are comfortable and competent when it comes to the inside of a computer and the hardware thus involved. :)

You really should turn your computer off before you try any of these suggestions.

The first thing you should try is simply loosening a screw or two thats fastening the hard drive in place. This may help lower the noise or simply amplify it.

If the sound was amplfied you could try sticking a piece of paper in places or a small piece of rubber between the mounting bracket and the hard drive and tightening the screws backup.

If none of the above ideas worked there is the somewhat dangerous yet highly effective method of floating your hard drive. By this I mean mount your hard disk using special mounting brackets(easily obtainble from your local Computer Store) in one of you're computers 5.25" drive bays.

The trick is to have one side of the drive with the mounting brackets tightened and the other side basically floating, the screws would be in it just enough that they couldn't fall out. You may have to play with this a bit loosening or tightening the screws on the floating side until the vibrations have quieted to an acceptable noise level.

There is a company in Europe that sells a very useful hard drive silencer called "NoVibes".

It's a bracket that mounts in a 5 1/4" drive that holds the hard drive between a few thick elastic bands, and some rather thick rubber pads. Almost totally eliminating any vibrations.

This is very effective with those monster 10K RPM SCSI drives. Also, the 3 1/2" to 5 1/4" conversion provides minor cooling benefits due to the increased airflow. Just cut a few holes in the bay cover, or even add a couple (quiet!) fans.

Edit: Zerotime has been kind enough to bring to my attention a comprehensive review at http://www.dansdata.com/novibes.htm, thanks!

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.