Silence Velociraptor without voiding warranty

J

JohnleMVP

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 20, 2001
Messages
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I just got a Velociraptor and want to reduce its noise, but I don't want void the warranty.
I heard its much quieter without the icepack, but it looks like they put a seal on one of the screws. Are their any mods I can do to reduce the noise of this thing? Maybe fill the heatsink fins with hot glue or something? The drive runs cool anyway.

Also are there different Velociraptor Icepacks? The one on newegg looks different from mine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136322
 
Not likely, some cases have rubber grommet mounts that help with vibration. But their heads are loud. Noise is a one of those things you sacrifice for speed.
 
Well vibration isn't the issue. SPCR.com said its vibration rating was 9/10 (10=low vibration) in the icepack and 8 out of 10 without, but noise was magnified in the icepack.

Without the icepack a VR is comparable to a WD Greenpower noise wise. So you can have your cake and eat it too. With the icepack the cake is a lie. :D
 
Are these people half-breeds with dogs or something? Geez... how the hell can you folks be hearing these drives? :) I've got two of 'em hard mounted in a solid steel case (Antec Three Hundred) and I simply can't hear 'em at all even in the most strenuous activity periods.

Man, if folks can hear these drives and consider them to be loud good lord... I can't imagine having hearing that sensitive, I'd go insane every time a bird flew by a window or a my head would explode in a light rainstorm. :D

If all else fails: suspend 'em in rubber bands.
 
Suspend the drives, but not in rubber bands ... any sort of durable elastic will do.

Stretch Magic is deal - get the thickest you can find. It's sold in craft stores, got mine at Michael's.
 
I'm going for a relatively silent PC. I have a WD 1TB Black, but found it too loud in my new case. Its an aluminum case and now sitting on the desk vs floor. I had a P180 before which insulated noise pretty well. I got the VR because I heard it was quiet, but at least mine is not. Its read noise is loud and its my boot drive so lots of random reads/seeks (vista). I'm considering putting it into my scythe hard drive silencer, my WD black is in there now. I may get a WD Green Power as a storage drive afterwards and dump the WD black.
 
I wasn't necessarily looking for silence, just a cheap solution to put my two V.raptors in the upper part of my case.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=215&products_id=23379

I was rather surprised at how well this little kit quieted the drives, I can't really even hear them unless their crunching away like mad...

Personally, I think these things are too quiet already. I miss my old IBM DeathStar's...now those we're loud...Let me know the computer was actually doing something...

LC
 
Are these people half-breeds with dogs or something? Geez... how the hell can you folks be hearing these drives?
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LMAO!!! :D

I'll second your emotion Joe!
 
yeah there is a seal on one of the screws, but did anyone ever get a confirmation from WD that removing it would void the warranty?
 
EnderW said:
that's pretty gay of them
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You can just use a razor blade to carefully remove the black dots that go over the screw holes on the "sled". If you ever need to RMA...just screw it back onto the sled.

*cough* 4x 2.5" velociraptors in a single 5.25" hot swap enclose... *ahem*
 
Trepidati0n said:
No it fucking isn't. It is like some moron teen tweaking out his ricer and when he blows the engine within the 3 year/36k warranty saying "fix my shit y0!"
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No it fucking isn't. In no way are you damaging or risking the drive by removing it from the IcePak.
 
Volkum said:
You can just use a razor blade to carefully remove the black dots that go over the screw holes on the "sled". If you ever need to RMA...just screw it back onto the sled.

*cough* 4x 2.5" velociraptors in a single 5.25" hot swap enclose... *ahem*
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Mine only had 1 sticker, I tried removing it with a pocket knife, didn't work that well.
 
Calm down fellas.

I agree its lame that you can't remove the icepack without voiding the warranty because it doesn't actually need the cooling, they supposidly sell one without the icepack, and when it first came out the only version you could buy (the version I have) doesn't work with hot swappable drive bays because the power and sata ports don't align.

I may just remove it and put it into an icydock 2.5 to 3.5 converter box. Might try out some other things first though.
 
EnderW said:
Mine only had 1 sticker, I tried removing it with a pocket knife, didn't work that well.
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Right, mine have only 1 per sled as well; I was probably typing what I was thinking which was 4x dots since I have 4x drives. ;)
 
Joe Average said:
Are these people half-breeds with dogs or something? Geez... how the hell can you folks be hearing these drives? :) I've got two of 'em hard mounted in a solid steel case (Antec Three Hundred) and I simply can't hear 'em at all even in the most strenuous activity periods.
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If you can't hear them, then you need to have your hearing checked. Seriously, I am not being facetious.

I have a 150GB and a 300GB one, removed from the heatsinks (as they don't do anything anyway), and suspended using DIY rubber bands. I have no vibration noise (obviously), or whine introduced by rotation of the platter. However, the drives are still very loud even under normal operation. When Windows is really working the drives the sound is incredibly annoying, so much that I am considering to just take the performance hit and go back to my silent SpinPoint drives.

My case is about 3ft from my ear, and the VelociRaptor sound annoys me to no end. If you are unable to hear your drives, then there's a problem with your hearing, or your ambient noise is so high that the drives are drowned out.
 
Joe Average said:
Are these people half-breeds with dogs or something? Geez... how the hell can you folks be hearing these drives? :) I've got two of 'em hard mounted in a solid steel case (Antec Three Hundred) and I simply can't hear 'em at all even in the most strenuous activity periods.

Man, if folks can hear these drives and consider them to be loud good lord... I can't imagine having hearing that sensitive, I'd go insane every time a bird flew by a window or a my head would explode in a light rainstorm. :D

If all else fails: suspend 'em in rubber bands.
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Amen. :confused: I thought these were some of the quietest drives out there (except SSD of course).
 
I put my drive in a Scythe harddrive silencer (old one without fins), it made a huge difference. The clicking noise when doing heavy random reads is much quieter now.
 
What type of case are you using that you can hear the harddrive? Have you tried putting it somewhere else inside the case?
 
Silverstone FT01. It doesn't matter where you put the harddrive, the heatsink on the harddrive amplifies the noise the harddrive makes.
 
As noted above, it doesn't matter in mine apparently, hard mounted to the steel case with thumbscrews... I simply can't hear the damned things. Must be something about that Silverstone case working like a Bose acoustic wave box or something and amplifying it. :)
 
Did you read the article or even the conclusion?

"ACOUSTICS
The VelociRaptor has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality disorder. As delivered in the IcePack frame, its acoustics can only be described as poor. The measured SPL is about the same as the previous gen Raptor WD1500ADFD but it actually sounds a bit worse. The 22 dBA idle SPL does not tell about the clearly audible, annoying 2kHz tone which rises at least 5 dB above the fundamental tone at 166Hz. Most regular readers know that 25 dBA with AAM is not quiet by today's standards. This is accompanied by an exacerbation of that 2kHz tone mentioned above, and audible harmonic overtones around 4kHz, 5kHz, 7kHz and 10kHz. It comes with AAM disabled, as would be the case for an performance drive, with SPL measured at 28 dBA, a level hardly any SPCR enthusiast would accept."

"As it stands, the IcePack is a joke, acoustically, adding all kinds of tonal, resonant harmonics excited by the vibrations of the drive. "

Also check out the audio recording. These guys are all about silent PC's after all. :p

jarthel said:
have a look at "AAM" (acoustic setting) in the firmware. :)
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Sort of defeats the purpose of a performance drive. The VR is capable of being quiet, you just need to void the warranty or mod it in some way to silence it.

Its not the case, I have a P180 as well and while it is quieter in the P180 its still noisy when doing heavy reads. Anyway for now its working fine in a HD Silencer that fits into the 5.25 bay, I'd like to use the harddrive rack though.
 
*shrug* my VR 160GB (HLFS) is quieter than my Seagate 7200.9. Never noticed any noise from it really, but of course my case is on the floor, not my desktop. And while he side has been open since I installed the VR, I usually wear headphones. Another factor may be the new 2.5->3.5 heatsink, its different on the HLFS models than the original VR's.
 
JohnleMVP said:
Sort of defeats the purpose of a performance drive. The VR is capable of being quiet, you just need to void the warranty or mod it in some way to silence it..
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which defeats the purpose of the thread starter?
 
jarthel said:
which defeats the purpose of the thread starter?
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I am the thread starter and you can modify the icepack without voiding the warranty. You only void the warranty if you do something that will get you in trouble with WD like breaking the seal. For example you could put a rubber anti vibration sleeve around it which is removable and you wouldn't void the warranty. Well at least they wouldn't be able to tell.

Old Hippie said:
I'm thinking you just got a noisy one. :confused:
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Or our perception of quiet is different.

ShockwaveVT said:
*shrug* my VR 160GB (HLFS) is quieter than my Seagate 7200.9. Never noticed any noise from it really, but of course my case is on the floor, not my desktop. And while he side has been open since I installed the VR, I usually wear headphones. Another factor may be the new 2.5->3.5 heatsink, its different on the HLFS models than the original VR's.
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Being quieter then a old seagate drive isn't really saying much. But yeah if you wear headphone your PC's noise isn't really a factor. As for the different Icepacks, its possible, but I doubt its significant.
 
JohnleMVP said:
I am the thread starter and you can modify the icepack without voiding the warranty. You only void the warranty if you do something that will get you in trouble with WD like breaking the seal....
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If that is the case, why does Western Digital publish this:
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/rmapacking.asp

on that webpage it clearly says:
"WARNING: Do Not remove the Ice Pack /Sled/Heat Sink attached to the VelociRaptor hard drive(s). If the drive is removed from the Ice Pack the warranty on the drive will be voided. (Only VelociRaptor blade models WD1500BLFS and WD3000BLFS are exempt.)"

Seems quite clear from this that they will void the warranty for Ice Pack removal, and other forums and posts have said this in the past.

As I have stated, I would have no problem voiding a hard drive warranty. If a drive fails in warranty, you are going to receive a refurbished replacement, which I would not consider using for storage that I cared about.
 
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