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From: ins_bjjb@jhunix.UUCP (Jared J Brennan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Whine from HD
Message-ID: <5290@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 20-Sep-87 16:19:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: jhunix.5290
Posted: Sun Sep 20 16:19:05 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Sep-87 01:48:05 EDT
References: <19@lzaz.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: ins_bjjb@jhunix.UUCP (Jared J Brennan)
Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ. Computing Ctr.
Lines: 35
Keywords: SH204 whine
Summary: heat --> whine

In article <19@lzaz.ATT.COM> bds@lzaz.ATT.COM (BRUCE SZABLAK) writes:
>Lately my Atari harddisk has begun to make a whining noise. Is this an
>indication of an impending problem? Is there something I should do?
>Thanks in advance! - Bruce

   When I first bought my hard disk (February?) it would whine after I'd left
it on for more than about five hours (say two games of Star Fleet I 8-) ).
First, there was a PING! and a whine which decreased in volume very slowly.
The whine would then recur intermittently until I shipped the head and turned
the drive off.

   I took the thing into my dealer and said, "Look, this drive is doing very
bad things," etc.  Neither he nor I was really willing to wait the five hours
necessary for the problem to start up again, so I had to settle for a coupon
good for free service six months over the warranty.

   Since then, I don't recall this happening again.  This may be due to the
fact that a) I've lived in a really frigid apartment all summer, and
b) I don't use the computer for very long periods any more.  (I'm certainly
not going to leave it on all the time . . . I can't sleep with monitor
whine and the fan in the hard disk is pretty noisy anyway.)

   In my case, if it dies because of this treatment, it'll probably still come
under warranty.  You may want to a) try to see if your dealer will do the same
thing, b) sell your Atari and get a Supra, or c) live with it.  I'd recommend
b), simply because you'll probably end up with an all-around better drive.
The reason why I haven't done that myself is that I'm lazy and unwilling to
take any more loss than I've already incurred with this system.

--
Jared J. Brennan
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