Because of their speed, 7200 RPM HDD's make more noise while seeking. It is nothing to worry about. If it is constant for long periods of seeming system inactivity, then I would get worried. If it occurs occassionally, or while you are running anti-virus scans, do not worry about it. The noise is the price we must pay for the increase in performance. If it is really bothersome, you will have to replace the HDD with either 5400 RPM (which are noticeably quieter) HDD's, or SSD's.

the sound is coming from the dvd rw..something normal with this laptop

MarshallR@ASUS wrote:
With the optical drive, it's likely the laser head resetting or checking for media. Some software or Windows occasionally checks it if you do certain things, like open Computer or go to open/save something for example.

ok..thanks

i'm sorry i haven't responded sooner to this thread. the problem is with the hard drive. it's the read and write heads most likely.

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php/

due to the redundant nature of hard drives one could be bad, or it could just be bad while warming up and then start working again. mine does it if the laptop is off and cool. it's especially prone to doing it if i shut down windows as opposed to just letting it hibernate. the end result is that i get system hangs from time to time as the system is trying to pull data off the drive.

check the website i listed and see if you can match up the sounds there with what you're hearing out of the drive. i have a G51vx, that started doing it about 6 months ago or so. it doesn't do it very much but maybe once a month or so. i'm going to replace the factory Seagate Momentus 320GB 7200RPM drive with a Momentus XT 500GB. Newegg has them for just under $100. the newer 750GB model is also a good replacement.

sorry i couldn't answer this question sooner for you folks.