Hard Drive Noise on Sony Vaio

Atlast we fixed the hard drive noise on our Sony Vaio (PCG-GRX500P) notebook. After frantically searching for this information on net for few days, I found the answer at one of the forums hosted by HP. It seems this is a known problem with some Hard drives (In our case Toshiba) and Intel chipsets. Here are the steps you need to perform to get rid of the clicking noise. :

1. Determine the intel chipset that you have. To do this download the Intel® Chipset Identification Utility. To run the Intel Chipset Identification Utility, simply download the file and run it. Our Sony Vaio has Intel 845MP/MZ chipset on the motherboard.
   
2. Download and install the Intel® Application Accelerator . It supports almost all of the Intel chipsets in the 800 series. Note that Mobile chipset support was removed from Intel Application Accelerator version 2.3. Version 2.2.2 is the last version available that supports mobile chipsets. So we had to install Verison 2.2.2. Also note that IAA works on computer systems running Intel® Pentium® III or Pentium® 4 processor only.
   
3. Located within the Parameters window on the Device Information property page are certain parameters that are modifiable. To change a selected parameter, select the device you wish to modify in the Devices window. The corresponding available parameters will be displayed in the Parameters window, to the right.Left double-click on the gray wrench icon associated with the modifiable parameter. The “Edit Value” dialog box will appear. Click on the scroll down arrow and select the option desired.
   
4. To get rid of the noise, You have to select the "Maximum Performance" option under the "Advance Power Management" parameter.
   

In our particular case on a Toshiba drive, there is almost 90% reduction in noise. Cool.

Disclaimer: Try the above steps at your own risk. It worked for us and there is no guarantee it will work for you.