Internal Hard Drive Beeps Intermittently

We purchased a few dozen Dell Optiplex 7040 systems and have found that the internal hard drive on a few of them beeps intermittently. The disk drive is a WD2500LPLX Black.

The beeps are coming from the drive itself (not the internal speaker). After the computer boots into Windows the beeping can take anywhere from 15 minutes to a few hours to start. The beeping continues every 30-60 minutes throughout the day.

I have moved the disk over to other known-working systems and the beeping persists.

WD Utilities, Dell SupportAssist and the BIOS utilities do not detect any disk errors. Nothing in Windows Event Viewer either.

Dell replaced the disk under warranty.

We have had 2 different systems with WD drives that exhibit this behaviour.

I have taken a few videos of the behaviour for reference:

Has anyone else seen this sort of behaviour?

Thanks.

Considering this behavior has been repeated across different systems and replacement drives then perhaps it would be best to contact WD Support about this for assistance. You can reach them using the following link:

http://support.wdc.com/support/case.aspx?lang=en

Thanks. I’ve opened a support case. I’ll post back here with any feedback that I get.

FWIW, Dell has replaced the drive both times under warranty, so I’m not expecting that WD gets involved in the RMA/replacement of the beeping hard drives. I’m more interested in whether this is a known-problem, as there are a few other posts where people are posting drives exhibiting the same behaviour (drive beeps 5-6 times every 15-30 minutes while in use), yet multiple diagnostic utilities do not detect any issue. Please see this thread for additional info: WD Digital Black WD5000LPLX Internal Drive Failures

I have noticed that during the beeping, the system becomes slow/unresponsive for a few seconds and then returns to normal. Obviously, the beeping noises are not normal so there is definitely something wrong. Between myself and the other 2 posters (Tamara_Broman and Jim_Jorstad) we’ve experienced 74 beeping hard drives in less than 500 systems.

I just received this reply from WD support:

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is Harry.

I understand that your WD Black (Mobile) is making beeping sound with Dell systems. I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. I will certainly assist you with best of my resources and knowledge.

This issue could arise due not enough power to the drive, or faulty cable. As you have already checked these drives and these disk does not give errors on various tests, this issue might be related to computer system that you are using with the drive.

Please refer to the link below for instructions to troubleshoot the clicking sound (beep noise) coming from the drive:

WD hard drive makes a repeated clicking sound

If the drives are in warranty and showing errors, we will be more than happy to replace it for you. Also if the drives are OEM drives then you need to contact your device manufacturer for replacement.

And my response back:

Hi Harry,

Thanks for the response. The issue is definitely not related to power or faulty cables, as I have moved the suspect drives to known-working computers and the issue still persists. Also, once the drive has been replaced the beeping stops.

Additionally, the beeping seen in the drives has been noted by others in this thread:

WD Digital Black WD5000LPLX Internal Drive Failures

Dell has replaced the drives under warranty. I am just trying to bring this matter to WD’s attention and figure out the the real issue is, as between myself and the other 2 posters (Tamara_Broman and Jim_Jorstad in the above thread) we’ve experienced 74 beeping hard drives in less than 500 systems. Does this not seem abnormally high to you?

If anyone is still puzzled by this issue, it seems to have been fixed by a firmware update available on the Dell support site. The firmware that came installed on the numerous WD3200LPLX drives in our Dell Latitude E6440 laptops is version 02.01A02. There have been at least two software updates placed on the Dell support site. I installed version 04.01A04 and no longer have the beeping issue.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=tw5th