Noisy computer.

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · Post by **Archie Nicol R.I.P.** » 6 Feb 2005 10:49 am

Over the last couple of days my comp. has started to make a Whirring, buzzing sound.
Does anyone know what might be causing it?

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 6 Feb 2005 10:57 am

It's either a cooling fan or even worse, a hard drive.

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · Post by **Archie Nicol R.I.P.** » 6 Feb 2005 3:53 pm

I don't know how many moving parts there are, so I hope it's the fan.
Thanks Jim.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 7 Feb 2005 3:51 am

Depending on the PC, you will probably have two fans - one for the CPU and the other in the power supply. P4 CPU's all have a CPU cooling fan - and most of these are variable speed depending on the temperature of the CPU. Many power supplies also have variable speed fans.

Hard drive motors can be noisy and if you have a head crash which is also noisy you would probably know about that from disk errors or programs that won't run.

From the comments on the Dell users forum, Dell must use cheap (noisy) fans in their PC's as that seems to be a common complaint.

Jonathan Cullifer · Post by **Jonathan Cullifer** » 7 Feb 2005 6:17 am

Fans start sounding like diesel cars when they die. Hard drives often produce high-pitched griding noises.

Fans are cheap and get dust in them, so if it's been a while (>5 years) since you replaced your fans, I'd definitely consider doing it.

Bill Miller · Post by **Bill Miller** » 8 Feb 2005 5:54 am

It's hard to say without actually hearing the sound but I'd recommend isolating the problem as soon as possible. If your power supply fan has gone bad there can be considerable heat build-up and even fire hazard. It would be a simple matter of changing the power supply...they're inexpensive and it takes only ten or fifteen minutes. It could be something else of course...even something as simple as an internal cable chafing on cooling fan blades. In the mean time you should not leave your PC running when no one is home in case of fire.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 8 Feb 2005 6:22 am

A comment on power supplies. If it's a Dell or some other "name" brand PC's such as Compaq, they use proprietary power supplies. A standard ATX power supply will not work (or even fit in the case of Dell's).

I have a Gateway, that is all standard ATX - no proprietary parts.

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · Post by **Archie Nicol R.I.P.** » 8 Feb 2005 9:28 am

The noise has stopped. Doh!

Bill Miller · Post by **Bill Miller** » 8 Feb 2005 9:37 am

Compaq is notorious for proprietary parts. I don't about the new Dell PCs but my first PC was a Dell (1997) and it didn't have many proprietary parts...I swapped out all kinds of components over the years I had it. I gave up buying pre-made systems a long time ago because it's a lot more fun to build your own. All most big companies are doing is assembling PCs anyhow. To give you an idea, my Dell had an Intel Mainboard, Intel processor, a Fuji harddrive, Mitsumi floppy drive, an AMI bios chip, Toshiba CDROM drive and Microsoft software. Basically what was Dell was the nameplate. But I must say the gave excellent customer support and probably still do.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 8 Feb 2005 4:38 pm

Bill, Sadly it's not the same Dell that you knew. First they use proprietary componets in their Dimension Desktop series (the "home" systems). The motherboards in most of the Dimension line is proprietary and not standard ATX in mounting or size. The SoundBlaster cards they use are Dell custom cards and not exactly the same as the Retail. The current XPS and 8400 series, I think now use an ATX compatible power supply but other models even have a custom power supply.

As far as tech support, for the Dimension series, it's now in the middle east. Very poor support, if you can understand them and if they can understand you. They did move the support for some commercial accounts back to the US (as a lot of the commercial accounts threatend to quit buying Dell) but otherwise it's support from India.

Bill Miller · Post by **Bill Miller** » 8 Feb 2005 6:34 pm

Jack, that's sad when good companies let things slide like that. The support at Dell used to be incredible. I had a hard drive go bad in mine and they gave me the option of sending the whole PC for repair or sending a replacement drive to save time. I chose the later solution and when it arrived a tech support guy stayed on the phone with me and walked me through the whole procedure, from swapping the drive to partitioning and formatting it and reinstalling the OS. I really credit that Dell support guy for kick starting my interest in building my own systems....he was awesome.
But I suppose that level of support is very costly and the competition is fierce. There's absolutely no excuse for having responders that can't speak intelligible english though. I see that happening in all sectors...technical support, banking support, even government support.