a regular clicking sound made by the hard disc

[smallshun]

Hello, everyone! When using OS X I notice there is a regular clicking sound made by the hard disc. I met the same problem under linux, and it was easily fixed by the program "hdparm". However, When I tried the equivalent "hdapm"(http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/) on OS X, it didn't work at all. Could someone tell me how can I solve the problem?

Any suggestion will be appreciate.

[adamsweeting]

Try unchecking the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" in Energy Saver in System Preferences

[smallshun]

Try unchecking the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" in Energy Saver in System Preferences

 

Thank you very much. But The problem is still there after unchecking that.

I tried "hdapm disk0 max" again, and the err code is:

 

disk0: WDC WD1200BEVS-75UST0

Setting APM level to 0xfe: FAILED: APM not supported

 

That's strange because my hard disc do spport APM and a similiar method works very well under UBUNTU linux.

[sjefdeklerk]

Exactly the same problem here and also exactly the same HDD (WD 1200BEVS) ...

[hecker]

I had the same issue with a Samsung drive and was able to fix it by upgrading the firmware. Maybe there is something for your drive as well.

[SticMAC™]

It is definitely a controller issue!

I've had three different HDD, both in capacity and manufacturer in my HP dv6716ez and they all did that. I even had a Genuine Apple HDD in it! my HP ran for more than 7 months, 24hrs a day and had no errors!

 

Now, my NEW Alu MacBook 2,4 is as quiet as a mouse!

 

SticMAC

[macxso]

I tried "hdapm disk0 max" again, and the err code is:

 

disk0: WDC WD1200BEVS-75UST0

Setting APM level to 0xfe: FAILED: APM not supported

 

That's strange because my hard disc do spport APM and a similiar method works very well under UBUNTU linux.

 

Hello all,

 

same here...

 

I have a Dell 9400 with Dual Boot Kalyway 10.5.3/XP and hdapm never works in OSX !

 

I opened hdapm.c

from:

 

http://mckinlay.net.nz/files/hdapm-source.tar.gz

 

 

and found this fragment:

 

void setAPMLevel(io_object_t disk, unsigned char level)
{ 
 printf("Setting APM level to 0x%02x: ", level);
 fflush(stdout);

 int l = (int) level;

 CFNumberRef cfLevel = CFNumberCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, kCFNumberSInt32Type, &l);
 kern_return_t r = IORegistryEntrySetCFProperty(disk, CFSTR("APM Level"), cfLevel);
 if ®
 {
   if (r == kIOReturnUnsupported)
     printf ("FAILED: APM not supported\n");
   else
     printf("FAILED\n");
   exit(1);
 }
 else
   printf ("Success\n");
}

 

My coding experience is a bit rusty (Asm and Pascal for 8 bits microes eons ago) and I don't know the BSD/OSX environment,

I need help to understand and fix this problem if anyone volunteers,

since this clicking noise drives me nuts.

 

I have seen that this problem is quite diffused on the net, even for the Power Books ( fortunately for them, it has been addressed by Apple with an HD firmware flush for 10.5.7 only)

 

The snippet:

 

kern_return_t r = IORegistryEntrySetCFProperty(disk, CFSTR("APM Level"), cfLevel);

 

is a call to a routine to get a parameter which returns:

 

1=APM not supported

 

But the HD supports APM in fact when I boot XP I can silence the HD with the equivalent "hdparm" for Windows.

 

Then if I do a soft restart from XP (i.e. without using Power Button), the HD keeps the setup and stays silent inside OSX.

 

This rises the possibility of setting the parameter in HD earlier, during the booting process before going to OSX, but about this way I know nothing.

 

I would really appreciate if someone could help me.

 

Rob

[gdc]

I have a dell inspiron 1420, with the same disk, and the same annoying click!

if you dont have ahci enabled in bios, hdapm does not work (you must have some .kext for the ahci, or leopard will not boot).

Bye, and sorry for my poor English.