For a couple of months now my computer has randomly been making some strange noises and it is starting to worry me. From what I understand the only moving parts within the computer are the fans, the CD drives and the hard drives. There are no CDs in any of the drives and the sound doesn’t sound “fan-like” which just leaves the hard drive, which is worrying. Basically I would like to know if this is something I can safely ignore or should I expect to hear the crunching of my hard drive shattering into a million pieces any time now? The sound is intermittent at best, it will go a few days without a peep and then won’t shut up for a day or so, it doesn’t seem to relate to any activity on my part as it sometimes happens in the middle of the night.
My computer is around 4 years old now and the specs are:
Athlon 2200+
512MB RAM
Maxtor 80GB HD
GeForce 6800LE
Windows XP (SP2 + fully updated)
More details available if you think it will help.
A recording of the sound can be downloaded here (around 2.5MB), the recording was made on a camera phone so the sound quality isn’t great but you get the general idea, the noise is actually louder than it sounds on the recording.
Sounds like the click of death/whirr of death to me, could be wrong. Backup your data, which is good advice regardless, and start shopping around for a new drive, which is good advice regardless (Newegg has 400GB drives for $120 + s/h)
As Groman stated, back up now! I did not get to hear your audio, but it is probably fans, because usually a hard drive goes south all at once and sounds like hampters playing ping pong, or a car riding a guard rail. Either one is totally terminal all at once. The click of death is usually the tademark of a zip drive. BUT BACK UP NOW! Pop the cover (In you are not still under warranty) and really hear where the noise is from. A fan is 6-10 bucks and is a lot cheaper than a overheated CPU. I am guessing a fan, but back up should be done regularly anyway. There are only two kinds of hard drives, those that have failed and those that are gonna fail. Keep safety on your side. A good back makes sure the drive will run for years, no backup insures a major crash is coming soon…
The modern hard drives that tend to go click-click-whirr right before they die tend to be Maxtors in my experience. Seagates and Wester Digitals typically just go dead.
I would turn off the computer, open the case, and unplug the power to the hard drive. Then turn the computer back on and see if you still hear the noise.
My friend had a noise not unlike that a while ago. Turns out it only made the noise when an external fan (in this case a room fan) pointed towards his case and interfered with the fans in his case, making an odd noise like that.
Sounds like the bearing in the processor fan sticking.
Just chuck it away and fit a new one - as said above they are as cheap as chips which is probably why it is failing - maybe a more expensive model would last longer.
Before you do though, try holding the fan steady (stop it rotating) or unplug it from the motherboard and either blow it and the heatsink out with compressed air or suck the dust out with a vacuum cleaner - I know this flies in the face of good advice and I do recommend caution while doing it but I have done it myself on occasion and suffered no ill effects.
Getting rid of all the crap could give it a new lease of life - or not!
It also sounds like your computer is underwater. I can’t recommend that but it would eliminate the need for a fan.