HWINFO: HDD clicking, when SMART monitoring is enabled.

9

99pollingperiod

Member
This issue is started since version 7++, it does not happens on 7.00 and older versions. I found it happens mostly with hard drives, manufactured 10-12 years ago.
All of them are working just fine, there is no troubles using AIDA64, Hard Disk Sentinel Pro, CrystalDiskInfo and other utilities.
I found the clicking sound happens when using HWIFO.
Another one report - NVME drive life amount decreses faster with HWINFO running on background and reading SMART - how? For example, i used NVME without HWINFO running all december 21 and life is reduced by 1% only (ordinal tasks everyday - browsing, gaming, no downloads, no torrents)
Doing all the same whole January with HWINFO running the nvme life is reduced by 3%!!! So i disabled nvme monitoring and since Feb to current date nothing reduced.
This is very strange.
What about fixing clicking sound on newest builds?
 
I assume the clicking sound occurs on a SATA drive, not the NVMe, right? If yes, will it also happen if you disable the "ATA Statistics Support" option in HWiNFO?
Also, how often does it happen - every polling cycle (default 2 seconds) or every polling cycle * SMART polling (default 2 * 100) ?
 
You mean the Global setting? Then the clicking sound must be caused by a different sensor than SMART, probably as a side-effect.
Try to disable monitoring of sensors one by one (by hitting the Del key over their heading) to determine which one is causing this.
Also make sure you don't have Debug Mode enabled in main settings of HWiNFO.
 
Martin said:
I assume the clicking sound occurs on a SATA drive, not the NVMe, right? If yes, will it also happen if you disable the "ATA Statistics Support" option in HWiNFO?
Also, how often does it happen - every polling cycle (default 2 seconds) or every polling cycle * SMART polling (default 2 * 100) ?
Click to expand...
Yes, it happens on SATA drive.
Today i made a test on all hard drives that i have since 2002. In all drives older than 2015 there is a clicking sound. There is no clicking sound on new drives like Seagate 2DM164 (2Tb drive), but the little noisy sound can be detected, like drive is restarting.
I also have the micro freezes in games, when SMART data updates through Hwinfo.
This freezes does not happens with AIDA64.
 
This function is safe and standardized. Problem might be only if some drives do not properly support it.
 
Martin said:
This function is safe and standardized. Problem might be only if some drives do not properly support it.
Click to expand...
Just created account since I had the same issue. HDDs are getting thrashed by the "ATA Statistics Support". It should be off by default. Hopefully people realize this issue and find the thread so they can turn it off. This is on newer drives than OP (within 1-5 years old)
 
I have active four WD HDD, at my system, no clicking at all. But I did disable HDD+SSD monitoring because I do not need it.
OP HDD this is Seagate, and he did not even mention if this is SATA or PATA, or even his motherboard.

Best Tip: disable all non important sensors, use 10000ms as sampling when gaming.
 
plunki said:
Just created account since I had the same issue. HDDs are getting thrashed by the "ATA Statistics Support". It should be off by default. Hopefully people realize this issue and find the thread so they can turn it off. This is on newer drives than OP (within 1-5 years old)
Click to expand...
Yes, what i did - i disabled all HDD/SSD monitoring and this clicking sound is gone! But!

For people, who want to fix this clicking - this is SATA controller triggering and trashing HDD/SSD - this is not safe at all, as author says!
It still triggers even if you rebooted your PC, i tested on both Gigabyte b460m ds3h and b560 - all the same!
Only disabling monitoring is not enough! Because if you started HWINFO with drives scan already enabled - disable it and turn off your PC, turn OFF it's power.
Rebooting is not enough! The SATA controller still triggers SMART and this clicking sound is unsafe! It can damage your HDD!
Remember - after disabling SATA scan and unclicking three option - turn OFF your PC and turn OFF it's power.
Only turning OFF PC without turning OFF power changed nothing on both Gigabyte motherboards.

This completely should be UNSAFE feature.
009876.jpg
 
HWiNFO performs only standard queries that are used to read drive statistics. This is a fully standardized feature (unlike S.M.A.R.T.) and even recommended by the (S)ATA (t13) committee.
So if a drive acts to these queries with such a clicking sound I believe there's a problem in the drive's firmware causing constant spin up/down that should not be performed.
 
Martin said:
HWiNFO performs only standard queries that are used to read drive statistics. This is a fully standardized feature (unlike S.M.A.R.T.) and even recommended by the (S)ATA (t13) committee.
So if a drive acts to these queries with such a clicking sound I believe there's a problem in the drive's firmware causing constant spin up/down that should not be performed.
Click to expand...
I found on my side it is not drive's firmware, but motherboard's SATA controller, triggered by hwinfo - it starts do trash things with hdd's/ssd's.
With default settings, without hwinfo sata monitor everything is fine.
All fine when i use AIDA64 and HDD Sentinel Pro. But only hwinfo makes sata controller crazy.
That's why you need to test more motherboards before saying it's safe.
 
99pollingperiod said:
I found on my side it is not drive's firmware
Click to expand...
I am all ears of how did you do that.
I am using computers since 1996, some wild made motherboards they had even the option to disable S.M.A.R.T. check at BIOS (They did that for some-sort of compatibility purposes).
You better post a screenshot of CrystalDiskInfo, it might that drive to be also unsafe to use due other damages.
 
Martin said:
HWiNFO performs only standard queries that are used to read drive statistics. This is a fully standardized feature (unlike S.M.A.R.T.) and even recommended by the (S)ATA (t13) committee.
So if a drive acts to these queries with such a clicking sound I believe there's a problem in the drive's firmware causing constant spin up/down that should not be performed.
Click to expand...
Hey, I'm still looking into why the drives were behaving this way. I don't think it is them spinning up - they shouldn't be asleep (my power plan is set to turn them off after 20 minutes of inactivity), so I'm not sure what this click/grinding noise for a second every few minutes is from yet.
 
With out delivery of screenshot of CrystalDiskInfo, with out mentioning exact Hard drive model (series ) brand.
You are not helping so others to be able to assist you back.
 
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