Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
- From: raylopez99 <raylopez99@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:18:08 -0700
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 <brianBLOG1...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Prev by Date: Re: Freeze-ups. Is power supply the only remaining possibility?
- Next by Date: Re: AMD CPU choice
- Previous by thread: Freeze-ups. Is power supply the only remaining possibility?
- Next by thread: Re: Weird clicking roulette wheel sound: what is it?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
