PC noise

[Dizeee]

My 6 year old Acer has started making a noise. Its like that metallic noise you used to hear on old computers as they clicked and whirred, only this is now doing like the second hand of a clock, click, click, click in perfect time and formation. Its constant and never ends.

It came about when I opened the PC up around 2 years ago to clean it, every time I turned it on after that I had the Warning - Your Computer has been Opened message and if I didn't press F1 after a few minutes this whirring would escalate to a horrible noise. A few times it has re booted without us knowing, for an update or something, and we have come back in to the room to find it sat on the Warning - Press F1 screen and the PC sounding like it is chewing through a pack of paper cups.

I opened it up again tonight and the noise is coming from a beige box in the corner with two connectors into it. It says data and sart or something similar.

The PC is clearly fked anyway - question is, will it catch fire if left on?

[colin79666]

Got a photo?

[gr1340]

Cd or DVD drive?

[Brigand]

As above, a picture would be good. It could be the hard drive dying, and with you saying the noise is coming from a box with "Data / SATA" written on it suggests the hard drive is inside.

[anonymous-user]

I wonder if the DVD drive has a disc in it and the door wont/ cant open ?

[maffski]

Pull both cables from the 'beige box' and turn it on again to see if the noise goes away.

If it is the DVD drive it's a standard unit and you can get them from about 15 quid, it's easy to fit.


The case open warning message can be cleared in the bios - Acer - How do I stop the "Warning!! Your computer case has been opened" message from appearing when I turn on my desktop?

[weeboot]

maffski said:

Pull both cables from the 'beige box' and turn it on again to see if the noise goes away.

If it is the DVD drive it's a standard unit and you can get them from about 15 quid, it's easy to fit.


The case open warning message can be cleared in the bios - Acer - How do I stop the "Warning!! Your computer case has been opened" message from appearing when I turn on my desktop?

This sounds like the most likely thing to me.

[Dizeee]

No it's not the DVD or CD drive, totally different part of the PC. This box is on the bottom and not accessible.

[weeboot]

Photo then please chap.

[Dizeee]

Can do photo but to save me opening up the entire PC again I have just done a short video of the sound and popped it online as that's probably easier.

Here it is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es0p3Kd_0KM

[anonymous-user]

Dizeee said:

Can do photo but to save me opening up the entire PC again I have just done a short video of the sound and popped it online as that's probably easier.

Here it is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es0p3Kd_0KM

Power supply fan blade catching/ bearing dry

[Dizeee]

The fan I have turned and cleaned, its def not that. The sound is coming from inside a box unit in the corner - probably the hard drive based on previous comments. Could there be another fan in or near there?

[Dizeee]

Ok I have just prepared a nother vid with PC opened up. The thing making the noise is a box with Data /SMS cache and 320GB written on it. I have showed it in the video...

Thanks

Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovb1GEoEhE8

[bitchstewie]

I presume you have backups of any important data? If not now would be a good time to make one (sorry, I know that sounds obvious but you'd be surprised how often people don't do this then act surprised when they lose all their stuff).

[Dizeee]

Yes cheers - if it goes now, we haven't lost too much.

[Zod]

Dizeee said:

Ok I have just prepared a nother vid with PC opened up. The thing making the noise is a box with Data /SMS cache and 320GB written on it. I have showed it in the video...

Thanks

Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovb1GEoEhE8

Hard drive. Sounds terminal.

[colin79666]

Yup very much terminal hard drive noise. Unlikely to catch fire if left on (your original question) but will likely result in a failure to boot/operate. If the hard drive still works you could get a replacement drive and copy over the contents of the faulty one before it gives up the ghost altogether - some hard drives even include disk cloning software.

[anonymous-user]

Yes its hard drive. Plenty of online guides to help about cloning to a new one guys on here can probably give you advice. You need to do it asap ie this weekend. When it fails it fails and you will then be in the realm of perhaps needing to get data off it.

[loudlashadjuster]

If I could give one bit of additional advice, it's unlikely to stop working completely in the short term if it's kept in use. As soon as it stops and cools down there is a much greater chance of it suffering a catastrophic failure when next powered up.

Don't power the system down and make sure the power plan doesn't put the drive to sleep until you get a chance to take any data you want to keep off it.

Good excuse to get an SSD. Even of you stick with HDD though I'd recommend just installing from scratch, inevitablly leaves you with a cleaner, more stable system.

[Dizeee]

I have passed the unit onto a local geek who has cloned the existing 320gb drive and replaced it with a terra byte drive, so no more noise. Annoyingly it has not sped up the computer which still takes an age to kick into life and get going, as well as opening programs etc.