flubba86

The last couple of days there has been a grinding sort of clicking noise coming from somewhere in my computer. It varies from a slow tick tick tick to a fast buzzing and is always present. I have checked that nothing is coming in contact with any fans and have checked that is itsnt the fans themselves by stopping them each individually, and the noise continues. I have checked that all hard drives and cdroms are mounted securely and cannot vibrate. The other day I completely stripped down my computer and cleaned each and every component and rebuilt it, and the noise stopped for a few hours then came back. This morning I thought that it may be the power supply fan, so I took it out and replaced it with another new one. (I am a student in electrical engineering and am aware of the risks of opening and playing around with a power supply). This didnt help at all, and the noise is still present. I have friends who are computer technicians and they are just as stumped as I. One other thing that I have observed is that the noise only starts about five minutes after I turn the computer on, so it may be heat related.
Sorry for the long and boring post. Hope somebody can help.
Flubba86

joat1

Have you checked the hard drives? Go to the manufacturer's website and they have a utitlity to test the health of your hard drives.

Valtelino

"Grinding/Clicking" sounds like hard drive. Is there only one HDD in this system? Does windows sometimes seem to 'freeze'?

ROFL. "Great minds, think alike" Joat? (But you're the faster typer)

flubba86

I downloaded the hard drive diagnostics utility for my maxtor harddrives from the maxtor website and ran the tests. Both of the drives passed with flying colors, and I didnt think it was them anyway. The sound is coming from the back of the pc, around the cpu or power supply.

g.w.

Hi, was poking around hardware posts looking to see if my most recent stupid question had been answered (how to determine by listed ratings what should be a better power supply? possibly a tough one as many power supplies fail to produce what they say they will), anyhow saw your post labeled power supplies, and peeked at it.

Possibly by this late date you have found your culprit noisemaker? If not read ahead.

You didn`t mention anything about your heatsink/fan, so maybe is an all alloy, which probably woudn`t apply to my history, but if thin enough it may. Fact is: these are all mass produced parts, cheaper materials, basically intended for about 2 years active use. Everybody upgrades so much todays SUPER puter is junk in 2 years.

I`m cheap, and use what I get, mostly use AMD processors, generally end up getting retail boxed units which have a heatsink/fan included. I currently have in my possesion 3 noisemakers.

2 are warm/hot weather ones, which when the ambient temps are over 70 faren, and after about 5 to 10 minutes of getting warmed up further by the heat generated from a running system they start talking to me. I`ve found from sticking my nose REAL close to them that what happens is that as they heat up, the cheapo plastic cowling around the fan distorts, and the talking starts. The fan itself doesn`t seem to slow, and internal temps don`t go up, making me think they are turning ok. Anyhow they still do the job, just make a racket about it. it`s a chatter, clacking noise, which does sound like the fan is hitting something, but it`s still whirring along, and like I said temp doesn`t go up? Go figure.

The other is my cold weather friend, ambient temps are freezing. I have to make sure my puter room is sufficiently warmed, or this one will start with a moaning sound, and then clatter as it warms, then go away when getting near normal operating temps. Again runs fine, but if it doesn`t warm quickly, and it`s real cold in the puter room, this pup will crash/lock-up/die/freeze/croak. Everyone says this one isn`t fan, but my HDD. Not!!! 3 different HDD`s tested, all of which make no wierd noise in other puters, but anything in this puter with the flaky fan makes the flaky fan talk.

Like yourself in the looking for the noise, I disassembeled, cleaned, swapped parts, got to be the only constant left was proc, and it`s heatsink fan while swapping parts in and out, noise stayed around.

Though mine has been the proc fans, I suppose same could happen to a fan on the power supply, but usually they have a much heavier shroud around the fan, probably woudn`t warp up.

So the moral of the story is use HI $$$$ heatsink/fans I guess, but like I said I`m a cheapo.

Maybe get real close, and see if can notice a change of shape on your processor fan, or it`s cowling. I don`t think, with even the expensive ones, they DYNO BALANCE em.

Hope it helps
g.w.

flubba86

Thanks for the info. The sound is not around anymore for some reason. I didnt do anything more to eradicate it, and the weather is still getting warmer, although I did put a fan in my room so that might be cooling off the ambient temp a bit. What you said about the fan shrouding around the heat sink makes sense and I think thats what the problem may have been. I was thinking about getting an aftermarket heatsink/fan so if it starts up again it will be a good excuse to make the purchase .

Volt-Schwibe

if it sounds sort of like a buzzing clicking, i ask, does it sound something like an insect mating call?

this might sound funny, but where i live there is some sort of an insect that emits a loud clicking slound, and it gets going so fast that it turns into a buzzing.

anyhow, sometimes capacitors will fail, and emit this same noise.
so, it might be one of the larger capacitors on the motherboard near the processor.

it's just a thought. do any of them look stained, or bulging? (the capacitors)