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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
Another piece of information: this weird sounds, which sounds like a
spinning roulette wheel, sounds like it's coming from the HD bays, but at the same time it could be the CPU fan--because when I power down, just as the electricity stops, and everthing is dead, I hear the last few revolutions of this sound, like the CPU fan propellers are coming to rest. a sort of "tac-tack-tak" dying sound. Could it be the CPU fan? And again, when I smack down hard on top of the tower, after the system has warmed up a bit (fifteen minutes of use, but not before), the sound usually stops. If it starts again (once or twice a day) another smack will silience it. Any ideas? I might replace the HD anyway, since they're five years old, but I'd hate to replace the CPU fan unless I have to (I'm afraid I might screw up the solvent/heat sink paste application, and it will fall off) RL raylopez99 View profile More options Sep 25, 6:33 am On Sep 24, 11:22 pm, Brian K wrote: On 9/24/2007 3:22 AM raylopez99 consulted a Magic 8 Ball and declared: Interesting Brian--this is my system now, 5 years old, as per another thread here. How long (if you dare estimate) before the HD failure (after you hear this noise, that you can flick away by tapping the side of the tower). Wasn't I clear? You open the case and flick the side of the HDD. In my case I can make the sound disappear by tapping the side of the tower--it sounds like a chatter, a light little vibration like a bunch of "bb" metal ball bearings being shaken in a metal cup, far away. Drive squeal as others have pointed out can be caused by many things. I had head crash occur on one system that was only three years old. Interesting--this is why I asked again--stories like this is what I want to hear. This HD, a Western Digital, is bought five years old this fall--about middle age for a HD. The read/write heads of a hard drive "fly" over the drive at a very narrow distance from the drive surfaces. Sometimes the heads become magnetized. When this happens the drive begins to squeal. Is this a squeal that's continuous? Or a vibration sound like I mentioned above? Finally, head crash happens when the magnetized head(s) become permanently stuck to the drive disk(s). When this happens the drive makes a sound like a loud scream. Then there's silence. The drive won't spin up and you can't boot. While the drive could be sent to a data recovery firm, this is not priced for non-corporate customers. At this point the drive is dead. Head crash doesn't happen as much as it used to, but it still can happen however rarely. I should have mentioned that in my original post. Another problem with this old drive (it seems)--it sometimes gets real quiet, "runs out of steam", and the system crashes (no activity), needing a reboot. It's almost like not enough power exists on the system--which also has this symptom (but I've upgraded the power supply, so that's not it). I think it's like the drive is just too old. As a precaution, I've ordered another EIDE HD (this one from Seagate), but before I spend half a day swapping internal HDs, I'd like to know if I can keep this HD as is for a little longer. RL |
#2
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
raylopez99 wrote:
Another piece of information: this weird sounds, which sounds like a spinning roulette wheel, sounds like it's coming from the HD bays, but at the same time it could be the CPU fan--because when I power down, just as the electricity stops, and everthing is dead, I hear the last few revolutions of this sound, like the CPU fan propellers are coming to rest. a sort of "tac-tack-tak" dying sound. Could it be the CPU fan? And again, when I smack down hard on top of the tower, after the system has warmed up a bit (fifteen minutes of use, but not before), the sound usually stops. If it starts again (once or twice a day) another smack will silience it. Any ideas? I might replace the HD anyway, since they're five years old, but I'd hate to replace the CPU fan unless I have to (I'm afraid I might screw up the solvent/heat sink paste application, and it will fall off) RL To debug weird sounds, first make a list of all the things that are potential sound sources. CPU fan, chassis fan, PSU fan, Vcore regulator, CDROM motor, HDD motor/platter, video card fan... For the fans, you can press on the hub of the fan, to slow it down just a little bit. If the noise disappears, or if the frequency of the noise shifts, then you'd found the source. A modern hard drive motor should not make sound. The modern ones are FDB or fluid dynamic bearing. If sound is coming from them, failure would be imminent. If a sound comes out, it means the bearing is dry, and the friction from a loss of lubricant, will ruin it quickly. Older drives use ball bearings. A drive with ball bearings will gradually get louder as it gets older. I retired a number of IBM SCSI drives, because I could no longer stand to listen to the noise. The drives still work fine, but I would not take a chance on them. You cannot get access to the PSU fan, to press on the hub. If you take a thin slip of paper, and jab it into the fan blades, the noise you hear will give you some idea as to what rate the fan is spinning at, and whether the characteristic frequency of that fan, matches the noise you are hearing. The video card fan is a good source of noise. I've had a couple of them that went bad. You should be able to get at the hub there, and press lightly on it. There is no reason for the CD to spin, unless there is media present. Vcore noises are different than fan noises, and you should be able to tell the difference between a rotating object making a noise, and other sources. It is also possible for a computer case to resonate at a frequency excited by a hard drive. Some drives vibrate from side to side, and a cheap case can amplify the sound. At 7200RPM (120 RPS), you'd expect the sound to be like an "AC hum". This is one reason I like to purchase heavy steel computer cases, to help damp out that kind of noise. I would not "whack" the computer case, because if you do, sooner or later you'll have a data recovery problem on your hands, when the disk is damaged. The disk might be innocent. Hard drives have evolved over the years, to their current tiny size. Back when they were much larger devices, they used to have a piece of spring steel which pressed against the end of the rotating shaft. On those old drives, the noise from that spring could drive you nuts. I'm not aware of any similar mechanism to drain static electricity off the rotating platter, on modern drives. There is nothing similar in the current design. Good luck, Paul |
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
On Sep 26, 1:43 am, Paul wrote:
raylopez99 wrote: To debug weird sounds, first make a list of all the things that are potential sound sources. CPU fan, chassis fan, PSU fan, Vcore regulator, CDROM motor, HDD motor/platter, video card fan... It is also possible for a computer case to resonate at a frequency excited by a hard drive. Some drives vibrate from side to side, and a cheap case can amplify the sound. At 7200RPM (120 RPS), you'd expect the sound to be like an "AC hum". This is one reason I like to purchase heavy steel computer cases, to help damp out that kind of noise. I would not "whack" the computer case, because if you do, sooner or later you'll have a data recovery problem on your hands, when the disk is damaged. The disk might be innocent. Thanks Paul--very helpful. From your post I conclude it's likely either a fan for the CPU or graphics card (since the sound dies out *after* the AC power is off, as the fan blades are winding down "tick tick tick" they make a last few dying sounds. Likely the HD is not the culprit but it being 5 years old I'm replacing it as a precaution. Banging will not bother anything IMO (I don't bang hard). I installed "Motherboard Monitor 5" utility and the CPU temp for a Northwood series 120nm Pentium IV is 102-111F (or 39C to 44C) at idle to light overhead, which from what I can tell he http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...ing/index.html is normal Any other tips appreciated; thank you! RL |
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
raylopez99 wrote:
On Sep 26, 1:43 am, Paul wrote: raylopez99 wrote: I would not "whack" the computer case, because if you do, sooner or later you'll have a data recovery problem on your hands, when the disk is damaged. The disk might be innocent. Thanks Paul--very helpful. From your post I conclude it's likely either a fan for the CPU or graphics card (since the sound dies out *after* the AC power is off, as the fan blades are winding down "tick tick tick" they make a last few dying sounds. Have you looked inside the case? That could be fan blades hitting something. Likely the HD is not the culprit but it being 5 years old I'm replacing it as a precaution. As a precaution for losing all of your files? You should always keep a removable media copy of any important files. Banging will not bother anything IMO (I don't bang hard). I bang hard and fast with no problems. RL |
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
"John Doe" wrote in message ... raylopez99 wrote: On Sep 26, 1:43 am, Paul wrote: raylopez99 wrote: I would not "whack" the computer case, because if you do, sooner or later you'll have a data recovery problem on your hands, when the disk is damaged. The disk might be innocent. Thanks Paul--very helpful. From your post I conclude it's likely either a fan for the CPU or graphics card (since the sound dies out *after* the AC power is off, as the fan blades are winding down "tick tick tick" they make a last few dying sounds. Have you looked inside the case? That could be fan blades hitting something. Likely the HD is not the culprit but it being 5 years old I'm replacing it as a precaution. As a precaution for losing all of your files? You should always keep a removable media copy of any important files. Banging will not bother anything IMO (I don't bang hard). I bang hard and fast with no problems. Same here.......Loud noise coming from 'puter.........bang the hell out of it.........noise stopped........pat self on back and say "I sure fixed that sucker........:-) Ed RL |
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
"raylopez99" wrote in message ups.com... Another piece of information: this weird sounds, which sounds like a spinning roulette wheel, sounds like it's coming from the HD bays, but at the same time it could be the CPU fan--because when I power down, just as the electricity stops, and everthing is dead, I hear the last few revolutions of this sound, like the CPU fan propellers are coming to rest. a sort of "tac-tack-tak" dying sound. Could it be the CPU fan? And again, when I smack down hard on top of the tower, after the system has warmed up a bit (fifteen minutes of use, but not before), the sound usually stops. If it starts again (once or twice a day) another smack will silience it. Any ideas? Wire loom contacting the fan blades ..maybe... open the case side and listen, if this is a fairly new rig, look around the CPU area, as the looms for some P4's are precariously close to the Fan. |
#7
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
On Sep 26, 9:42 am, "JAD" john
wrote: "raylopez99" wrote in message Wire loom contacting the fan blades ..maybe... open the case side and listen, if this is a fairly new rig, look around the CPU area, as the looms for some P4's are precariously close to the Fan. I checked that, and it's not a wire contacting the fan blades. My next PC I build will be with rubber fasteners and sound proof installation--an all quiet machine that's becoming more popular. RL |
#8
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
Ed M. wrote:
Banging will not bother anything IMO (I don't bang hard). I bang hard and fast with no problems. Same here.......Loud noise coming from 'puter.........bang the hell out of it.........noise stopped........pat self on back and say "I sure fixed that sucker........:-) Reminds me of a friend (honestly, it wasn't me!) who used to have a 14" or 15" CRT monitor that was starting to fail. One of the colours would stop working and/or it would start to emit a high pitched squeal..... the way he fixed it was to whack it so hard on the side that it almost fell of the table.... either that or whack the top of it so hard that it nearly went through the (mainly) plastic desktop case that it sat on Surprisingly, it (and the P2-350 base unit it sat on) took years of this abuse. It was probably just a dry joint that needed resoldering on the back of the tube but I didn't tell him that or I'd have got myself a job! |
#9
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Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
"class_a" wrote in message . .. Ed M. wrote: Banging will not bother anything IMO (I don't bang hard). I bang hard and fast with no problems. Same here.......Loud noise coming from 'puter.........bang the hell out of it.........noise stopped........pat self on back and say "I sure fixed that sucker........:-) Reminds me of a friend (honestly, it wasn't me!) who used to have a 14" or 15" CRT monitor that was starting to fail. One of the colours would stop working and/or it would start to emit a high pitched squeal..... the way he fixed it was to whack it so hard on the side that it almost fell of the table.... either that or whack the top of it so hard that it nearly went through the (mainly) plastic desktop case that it sat on Surprisingly, it (and the P2-350 base unit it sat on) took years of this abuse. It was probably just a dry joint that needed resoldering on the back of the tube but I didn't tell him that or I'd have got myself a job! hehe........I had one a decade or so ago that was very similar, but it was actually dying (flyback Xformer) and I went through that for about a month before it just went to the dark side on me. That was what brought up that last post about banging the hell of 'puter.......:-). Banging on today's computers, especially with the fragile SATA/SATA power connectors, is not something I would recommend in actuality. Ed Medlin |
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