computer noise

[jimstamos]

you know when your computer is powering up you can hear it making a noise likes it going through starting everything up then once all is in place it stops?
mine keeps making that noise continuously.ive done the compressed air and cleaned it but it stills make that working noise. any idea what it could be? is something about to go out on me?

[Blast1]

Best to check the drives and fans, particularly the CPU cooler, you can use a mechcanics stethoscope or a thin stick with a earbud cover on it to find a extra noisey drive or fan.

[Spready]

BIOS

Check all your settings in the BIOS.
It may be that your Fans are being controlled with the BIOS and something needs adjusting in there.

[Geoff]

I had a similar problem once when using the NX and expansion cards, changing the cards sorted the problem out.

Good luck,

Geoff

[Rusty]

mine keeps making that noise continuously.ive done the compressed air and cleaned it but it stills make that working noise.

Do you have Indexing on under Vista/Win7?

[jimstamos]

computer noise

no im using windows xp

[THoff]

Windows XP also supports indexing -- right-click on the volumes shown under "My Computer" and see if the "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching" option is checked.

If the fan stays on, the culprit is likely CPU activity, not disk I/O. But I'd disable indexing anyway, it will definitely impact overall system performance.

[gdame]

My guess would be fans. Most devices use sleeve bearing fans. The smaller the fan the louder they are especially when the sleeve bearing starts to wear. They will sometimes quite down a bit when the system is running warm.

Graphics cards, FireCoder Blu, HD Thunder etc all use these small fans. These would be my first suspect. take a toothpick or some other non-metallic pick and stop the fan one at a time for a couple of seconds. It will be very apparent which is making all the noise. Chassis fans and lastly power supply fans are next to check. If you do replace any of these, do so with double ball bearing type.

After checking all your fans, start isolating hard drives by disconnecting the power to each one will the system is off of course. Do this to all except for the system drive. Note which ones were the loudest and plan on swapping them out with new units before they begin to fail.

[tingsern]

George,

Got one question for you - is it really safe to stop the power supply fans even for a few seconds? I have a Supermicro system with 2 power supplies (failsafe fallback) - and the fans are really small. I would hesitate to poke anything inside. Thanks.

[THoff]

Briefly stopping the fan will hurt neither the fan nor the PSU itself.

[gdame]

George,

Got one question for you - is it really safe to stop the power supply fans even for a few seconds? I have a Supermicro system with 2 power supplies (failsafe fallback) - and the fans are really small. I would hesitate to poke anything inside. Thanks.

Tingsern, if stopping a fan for a few seconds could create a problem then that component was running to close to it's thermal threshold. Power supply fans would be the last to suspect as most of then do use ball bearing fans. Certainly SuperMicro. I have stopped Antec power supply fans many times in search of the noisy culprit. I would not use a toothpick in a small SuperMicro fan as they are spinning much faster and stronger than normal 80mm or 120mm chassis fans. Some Intel CPU fans are also ones to use something a little sturdier. Another method which I use is a small paint brush, it allows me to slow the fan down gently, like applying the brakes. This works great for a fast spinning CPU fan. It is non conductive and it cleans the leading edge of the fan blade at the same time.

So no it is not a problem to stop any fan for a couple of seconds. If it is then you have been on the verge of a problem all along.