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From: AIN14922@merrimack.edu (Doug Linder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why does my computer squeak?
Message-ID: <11696@merrimack.edu>
Date: 13 Nov 89 14:46:26 GMT
References: <5707@lindy.Stanford.EDU> <340018@hpsgpa.HP.COM>
Organization: Merrimack College, No. Andover, MA
Lines: 48

In regards to computer sqeeekage:
I didn't see the original post, so I'm not sure of the specifics, but it sound
like a problem I encountered as a site-maintenance person for a PC CAD company. 
Generally, our clients didn't know anything about PC's except how to use
AUTOCAD, and since they were architects with thousands of man-hours invested in
a single drawing, they tended to panic when _anything_ went wrong at all.  One
of these mysterious things was an ominous sqeeek.

After much head-scratching and intent listening, I finally determined that the
squeeking was coming form the hard drive (not the power-supply fan, as I had
suspected).  I was afraid of something severley wrong inside the thing
(picturing cylinders coming spinning off of a bent axle or something) so I
called the company (I think it was Seagate, what a pain the ass that was!). 
They told me that it was a very common problem: turns out the rive had a "bent"
static dissipator.

A static disspator is a small piece of metal (usually copper) attached to the
bottom of many (usually older) hard drives.  Its function, evidentally, is to
do as the name implies: dissipate static electricty generated by the constant
rotation of the drive.  (and you all know hat random electricity can do to a
hard drive!)  Evidentally, sometimes these little widgets come loose (I don't
know why they said "bent," it looked ok to me).  All they have to do is loosen
up a little bit and the vibrations from the drive cause them to move very
quickly in a very defined space.  Now, I don't know anything about it, but my
theory is that the squeek is some kind of harmonic produced by very rapid
vibration/rotation of the small, thin piece of metal. 

At any rate, the company told me to "pull the little sucker off!"  I didn't
want to (sounded to me like they didn't want to pay for a repair job) but they
assured me that it would cause no harm, so I did (but only because the thing
was still under warranty).  Sure enough, after that the thing was quiet as a
mouse.  I repeated the procedure with quite a few drives over time, and none of
then ever failed (at least, not in a way that had anything to do with that
thing).  It tenede to distress client, though, seeing me manhandling their
equipment that way, so I usually sent them for coffee when I did it. :-)

So, take out your hard drive, turn it over, and if there's a little pice of
copper attached to the drive axis, thare's your problem.  If you want to take
it off or not is your decision, I never had any problems.  The only other thing
I could think of would be to somehow immobilize the puppy.  At any rate, almost
all the newer drives I've seen have corrected this problem by just covering the
bottom of the drive with plastic.

Hope that helps,
-- 
	Douglas D. Linder, Merrimack College, N. Andover, MA
	ain14922@merrimack.edu
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