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I Have a laptop from nearly an year and for some time now I've been experiencing a problem with it. Sometimes when I try to power on the laptop the loading screen of Windows freezes and the hard disk starts making a strange noise, something like buzzing. I found out that if I shake the laptop a bit the problem goes a way and the laptop boots with no problems.

I have a couple of questions:

  1. What is the cause of that problem?
  2. Is it possible that the drive will stop working sooner?

I have plans on buying a Seagate SSHD 1TB HDD Memory 8GB SSD Memory 64MB Cache 5400 RPM Sata3

The SATA3 Troubles me here because my old one is with SATA2 port and I don't know if it will work

Edit: I have a very different problem now. My brother dropped the laptop on the floor. Now there the display wont work: No loading, no BIOS splash screen. And the second thing is that the hard drive led on my laptop won't turn on.

Aditional Information: I tried booting without the hard drive - still black screen I tried to use the hard drive on a different computer as a secondary hard drive - everything seems fine here I tried to connect the laptop to an external monitor - nothing happend I hear noise from the hard drive when booted on the laptop, the fan of the CPU is working and the CPU is warm.

The Laptop is Lenovovo G650

What could be the problem, is the motherboard damaged or is the screen cable damaged or is it something else?

EDIT: It was the Chipset. I had it repaired and now everything is fine, about the hard drive - I'm planing to buy a SSHD 750GB hard drive, but I don't know if the speed will be improved for my laptop model

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    I would replace the HDD as soon as possible. Recommending products is off topic as in the FAQ.
    – Xavierjazz
    Nov 18, 2013 at 17:34
  • You should take your computer to a technician, it sounds like there are serious hardware problems. I would not recommend attempting to boot it up, nor should you shake it.
    – zeel
    Nov 24, 2013 at 23:06
  • @zeel I had sent it and I expect a call from them this week Nov 25, 2013 at 19:45

4 Answers 4

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Confirm the SMART health status of the drive using a tool like Speedfan. Also confirm that the disk is still securely mounted in its bay.

if the SMART status shows imminent failure, or the drive is quite securely mounted, replacement is indicated with all due haste.

I would also recommend you take a backup of your personal files now, while you have the chance.

since HDDs spin, they can cause harmonic vibrations both inside and outside the casing. if the drive is securely mounted, the issue is likely internal, and is essentially your disk spinning itself to death.

Yes, vibrations both inside and outside the casing can increase the likely hood of catastrophic failures like head crashes, or slow death failures caused by an unevenly rotating disk.

as for replacement, you are mainly concerned about the drive bus type and form factor. For the most part, any 2.5" SATAII drive will replace any drive with identical specs. your existing hard disk should have sufficient information printed on its casing to determine these specs.

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  • I will check the hard drive out, but what happens if I wan't to replace it with a one that has a higher capacity? Nov 19, 2013 at 19:06
  • capacity is not an issue as long as you are using a modern OS and file system type (ntfs, ext3 or 4, etc). by all means upgrade! Nov 19, 2013 at 19:19
  • Ok, I will start searching for a new hard drive ASAP Nov 19, 2013 at 19:21
  • I have found a SeaGate SSHD hard drive but what troubles me is the power consumption of the new and the old hard drive. Do you know a way to see what is the power consumption of the current hard drive that I have? Nov 19, 2013 at 19:44
  • power consumption is not a commonly cited metric when shopping for HDDs, so I don't know of any way to know that in advance. I have never had a problem on that front, but that doesn't mean it can;t be an issue in extreme cases. Nov 19, 2013 at 21:01
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Answers: 1. - The shaking. 2. - Definitely with more shakes.

Seriously, your hard drive sounds like it is failing. make sure you have it backed up as the more you shake it, the quicker it will fail. Replacing most hard drives is pretty straight forward - assuming you have a copy of your recovery media made onto dvd /usb.

If you don't - MAKE IT NOW or this could work out very costly for you.

and please - no more shakes :)

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In many cases like this, where such "shaking" fixes the problem, there might be an issue with wires.

You can try this. 1. Open up the laptop's Hard Drive bay (Usually involves a screwdriver) and take the Hard Drive out. You might have to detach some cables and undo some screws. 2. Afterwards, dust off anything dirty on the drive and rewire it in the bay (Connect again).

If the problem persists, you should consult some technical person. I'm ruling out any software issues, since, you can't really "shake" softwares right?

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  • Thanks for the help. I will try to clean it, let's see what happens Nov 19, 2013 at 19:22
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For your SATA2 and SATA3 concern, when the data is read from the disk of the hybrid drive, you won't see the different. But if it is accessed from the SSD cache of the hybrid drive, your SATA2 will be the bottle neck.

In other words, the SSD cache need more bandwidth than SATA2 while the disk is within SATA2.

But the SSD hit ratio won't be 100%, you may be benefit from the faster SSD with SATA2 by

For SATA2 computers: Hit Ratio * SATA2 Bandwidth / Bandwidth of SSD Cache in hybrid drive

You might need to choose the right size of your SSD cache which is related to your file cache. The bigger of SSD cache to file cache, the better your system will be benefit.

More detail about the size matter at Buffer and Cache in Hard Drive and Operating System explains the SSD Cache Size of your SSHD

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