We have around 50 Dell pc's here @ work and I've noticed that 6 of them make a really annoying (and loud) whinning noise (and no, it's not the user :)).

I've tracked it down to the hard disks and since they are all identical with the same make/model of hard disk, I'm thinking of asking Dell to replace them under warranty.

Do you think it's a reasonable complaint?

Stefan

Yes.

Noise is also a sign that something's around to fail in my experience.

with modern HDD and motherboard (might need the software as well), you should be able to enable S.M.A.R.T. it will detect if the HDD is on it's way out.

The Dell workstations do have S.M.A.R.T. enabled drives and I run the OpenManage software to monitor the hardware. Nothing has been reported on any of the PC's, but the disks are noticeably louder than the others.

Last Monday one of the users said "I switched my pc on this morning and it's started making a funny noise; it was fine on Friday". Seems to be the standard symptons - one minute it's fine, but you can switch it off and when you turn it back on it's starts whinning away :(

I'll phone Dell this afternoon and see what they say.

Stefan

Good luck, set aside 2 hours to trawl through their technical support system.

[Edited by rik1471 - 7/31/2002 12:36:23 PM]

are the hd maxtor if so get them changed as we have had 6 go sofar they were a dodgy batch and they will swap them out of better drives

No, there Western Digital ones, although my Maxtor at home is doing the same thing.

Stefan

phone them up i have never had a problem to get them to fix anything

we often have problems with users whining. It usually stops just after you have *temporarily* reduced their mail quota by 90%

:)

Steve

nasty steve :) !

I think not :) continued whining results in me blocking port 80 access ......

Steve