computer clicks, answers needed.

Factual Questions
1

Yes, another computer problem thread. (Sorry) I’ve noticed that at seemingly random times my computer will make 2 clicks, almost like a shutting off then back on sequence and then things on the computer will temporarly slow down. I say “seemingly” because I’ll notice it happens more frequently when someone either I start AOL IM or someone signs off or when I’m playing a game. Browsing will be slowed and game play will crawl for about 5 min. after the clicks, but again, it’s happened other times as well.

To describe the clicks (and add a guess to the problem) I would say it sounds like the fan being stopped and then starting up again.

I’m not asking you guys to fix the problem, rather I’d like to take it in to a shop and have something more to say than: “It clicks, then slows down, fix it.”

If you have any ideas or similar experiences please let me know.
(BTW, it clicked while writting this post :slight_smile: )

Thanks!

2

Is it the hard drive? They’ll click loudly if you’re spinning them up after sleeping for a while, is this similar?

3

Sounds like something to do with the hard drive or drive controller - the clicks could be the hard drive heads parking - does it sound like a sort of ‘bouncy’ click? (imagine holding a fork by the very end of the handle and letting the prongs bounce on a hard table - does it sould like that?)

long shot (and I’m assuming that you’re running Windows): it might not be a hardware problem at all - go to Start/Settings/Control Panel/Power Options (might be called Power Management or something similar and check that the system is set up to never turn off the hard disks.