Im in the process of building a new PC. I purchased a WD 120GB *MB Cache Special Edition HD. I decided to make one large partition of the drive. Problem: HD makes random clicking noice. Now I never have had a 7200rpm IDE drive so that may be normal. I cannot detect any degredation in performance. Its more annoying than anything. The click is the sound similar to the click when you hit the swtich on a monitor or when you first boot up. Its random with no pattern. Is this normal? An early warning sign possibly? Again, I have always used a 5200 IDE this is my first 7200rpm ....I say that in case there is some power save or periodic fireup....but it will click once every few mins...sometimes like 3 or 4 times in a row...then nothing for a long time. Its almost the sound of those old metal clickers that used to come in Cracker JAcks. Any help apreciated. Rest of system info: CPU AMD 2200+ with Volcano 7 HS+Fan (standard grease pad no xtra applied) running at 53-58C 1 GB: 2 X Corsair 512MB PC2700 DDR MB: ASUS A7V333-RAID KT333 Soho 1035B Case with extra fan in front of HD in the 3.5 cage. Swapped out power supply for Antec 550W case came with 350W. Oddly enough the fan on the power supply always runs between 1590-1610rmp Asus probe complains if it gets below 1600. Got a MSI Ti4200 64MB Video card Audigy 5.1 Sound Card from Creative TDK Velo 48x16x48 CDRW AOpen 16x DVD Added a blower below the sound card and Intel PC 100+ Nic Oh yeah Windows XP IOS

A lot of full height SCSI drives made that sound when they were being written to. I never heard an IDE drive do this, but it may be normal. Ask Western Digital tech support.

No I don't think that's quite normal. I have a couple hard drives that are 7200 RPM(they are IBM tho) and I can't hear them at all. Does your BIOS support SMART and if so is it enabled? That could give you a sign something's wrong, but clicking is usually a sign the disk is going bad. Strange that a new disk would do that but things like that can happen.

I know that some of the newer drives do diagnostics for the first couple hundred power on hours or so. This could be the cause of this sound. Wait it out a few weeks and see if it improves.

I get loud clicking noises when my drive(72K) is being really used, it could also be because the drive is overheated

The clicking sound must be the hard drive turning on & off for energy saving purposes in Windows. My hard drive clicks once in a while, and it's the 80GB special edition.

I have a 7200 Maxtor quietdrive that will make a clicking noise every now and then. Was a little concerned at first but it sounds normal to me, not like a defect. Not very loud but just noticeable. Have no idea what causes it though. BTW this is also a very new drive so maybe Trip is right.