Corsair 680X HDD vibration/resonance

I've built an entirely new system utilising the Corsair 680X.

The harddrive cage with the sliding trays, which require no tools, is great, but the build quality seems quite off here. The trays have pins which you mount the HDD on and are surrounded by a rubber padding to stop vibration. It does no such thing however. There is a crystal clear vibration coming from the HDDs up to the point where you can feel it throughout the entire desk.

Has any other owner of this case noticed the same? If I remove the sidepanel and put pressure on the drives, the vibration is stopped. I'd love to replace the mechanical drives altogether, but shelling out 440euro on a 4TB SSD just isn't at the top of my priority list atm.

I've built an entirely new system utilising the Corsair 680X.

 

The harddrive cage with the sliding trays, which require no tools, is great, but the build quality seems quite off here. The trays have pins which you mount the HDD on and are surrounded by a rubber padding to stop vibration. It does no such thing however. There is a crystal clear vibration coming from the HDDs up to the point where you can feel it throughout the entire desk.

 

Has any other owner of this case noticed the same? If I remove the sidepanel and put pressure on the drives, the vibration is stopped. I'd love to replace the mechanical drives altogether, but shelling out 440euro on a 4TB SSD just isn't at the top of my priority list atm.

I *HAD* 2 WD drives in this build at first and had no issues with vibrations or noise. Not a one, but what I did notice was that the drives were running hotter than they were in the old case (CM Stacker 830 Evo) and was a good thing oddly. Turned out one drive was idling at 58-59°C and was dropping offline once it hit 60. That is not to be misread as a case problem (even if airflow around them sucks) as those two drives had ~9 years of operational time and I wasn't aware one was failing until this. Seeing as they were sister drives (S/N was sequential on them) I just retired them both by putting a drill press through one and the other got a couple .50 rounds through it.

Is it possible for you to try a different (possibly newer drive) to see if the problem still occurs? I understand you stated you had built an entire new system with it but does that apply to those as well? I ask because I personally don't necessarily consider drives part of a new build per say.

I already disconnected and removed one of the drives. This particular drive was the most noisy. This drive is 7 years old, a very nice age for a drive I would say, and still works perfectly.

The second drive is only a year old. If Windows decides to shut this drive down, the computer becomes a lot more quiet since the vibration is then gone. In my previous case I never heard any of the mechanical drives.

Regarding the temperatures, I did in fact also notice when I had two drives connected that one of them reached 50°C+. I am absolutely in love with the aesthetics of this case, but have also found some points that could absolutely have been better:

- Why is there a grey fan in the back and RGB fans in the front?

- No HDD/SSD cooling

- No fan controller. I do, in fact have 8 fans connected and had to buy a fan controller separately.

- (not really an issue) With a radiator mounted on top, the holes for the cables become extremely hard to reach

- You have to remove the top radiator to clean the filter (why? :[pouts:)

I was just wondering if anyone noticed the same sort of vibration and had found any solution for it. Tips and tricks are welcomed. Pretty sure I'll get one of the 4TB SSDs when the time is right, until then I want the vibration to stop.

- Why is there a grey fan in the back and RGB fans in the front?

Cost. 1 less RGB fan, slightly better profit margin. I would prefer none of the cases come with fans anymore, the price point was lower, and you freely choose your own. Someone else will feel the opposite way and so companies split the difference and go down the middle road.

- No HDD/SSD cooling

I don't know of any case with this design that comes with built in HDD cooling. The ancestral 540 has them in the bottom of the main chamber. People hated it. 1 week was enough to make me dump my last HDD. There aren't even that many cases with the classic front drive bay/front intake design anymore. You are not going to see a lot of cases designed with HDDs in mind as they fade from existence.

- No fan controller. I do, in fact have 8 fans connected and had to buy a fan controller separately.

The physical knob/manual fan controller on the case is a bit passe as well. These days most have their own software controller as a separate or sometimes included item. Several Corsair cases do come with a Commander Pro build it. The cost is higher as a result, so back to the "a la carte vs all included" debate.

- (not really an issue) With a radiator mounted on top, the holes for the cables become extremely hard to reach

The case has to stop somewhere. Without the radiator, you might feel there is too much space up there. At least we can get 140mm fans and a radiator up there without a motherboard/ATX plug collision. That is getting to be a serious problem on a lot of cases that have the "shallow top" design.

- You have to remove the top radiator to clean the filter (why? :[pouts:)

I am not sure you want the filter up there at all if you have the radiator in the top. As exhaust, it's not really helping you while adding resistance to the fans that already have to overcome the radiator. If you are top intake, it theoretically has some value, but glass+filter+radiator is going to come with a measurable temperature penalty.

I was just wondering if anyone noticed the same sort of vibration and had found any solution for it. Tips and tricks are welcomed. Pretty sure I'll get one of the 4TB SSDs when the time is right, until then I want the vibration to stop.

Not specific for that case. In the suspended bracket in the rear, it essentially has an echo chamber to amplify the resonance. Not the same as tying them into suspended platforms from the main frame of the case. You would like to wrap it in something, but both space and heat are going to be a problem. You have space back there. If it really is a serious issue, you could take out the exiting bracket and put in an aftermarket solution, with or without cooling, and potentially as single slots if needed.

The other side of the argument is HDDs are now the disposable razor blades of the PC world. The lifespan keeps getting shorter. 15 years and 1 HDD fail. Then 5 in 6 months, all brand new from 3 different manufacturers. Most of them buzzed straight out of the box. The 8 year old drive that was "failing" was smooth as silk by comparison. That really was the end of HDDs for me. Yeah, a 4TB SSD would be a tough price pill to swallow, so maybe taking the extra steps to isolate the two existing drives isn't so bad.

The other side of the argument is HDDs are now the disposable razor blades of the PC world. The lifespan keeps getting shorter. 15 years and 1 HDD fail. Then 5 in 6 months, all brand new from 3 different manufacturers. Most of them buzzed straight out of the box. The 8 year old drive that was "failing" was smooth as silk by comparison. That really was the end of HDDs for me. Yeah, a 4TB SSD would be a tough price pill to swallow, so maybe taking the extra steps to isolate the two existing drives isn't so bad.

You are right! More recent HHDs are definitely worse. I doesn't need to have anything to do with worse quality control, it's just the manufacturer using the same old technology while increasing the capacity further and further. It's bound to be less stable.

The cost and time spent investing in a solution would be better spent on my piggy bank to get giant SSD, so I think I'll do it like that.