Computer freezes and sounds like its reading a floppy disk

[Guest]

Hello and thanks for viewing my post. I am having an annoying issue with my PC and I have pretty much run out of ideas and was hoping some of the smart folks that visit these boards might have some suggestions and could help me try and resolve this problem.

About me... I work in the computer industry and do hardware/software support for servers and have been building my own PCs for the past 10 years or so. So I do have experience with the different components, but I still can't seem to figure this out.

I just built this PC about 3 months ago. Everything seems to be working fine, outside of this one problem. At random intervals, my PC will lock up for about 10 seconds and make a clicking sound. The sound it makes is the exact sound of a computer reading a floppy disk. However, I do not have a floppy disk drive in the computer. After the 10 seconds it goes back to normal and works fine. This happens about 3-5 times an hour and primarily when I am gaming (although it has happened outside of my game).

My specs are as follows:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
4GB Dual Channel RAM, believe Corsair brand
Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case58108923
500 Watt Power Supply (Carried this over from my old PC)
Geforce 9800GTX (Carried this over from my old PC)
Windows 7 64 bit

The only peripherals that I have hooked up are a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. So I cannot think for the life of me... what could be making this clicking sound. Maybe the power supply?

Any ideas out there on what could make the EXACT sound of a floppy disk being read and that would freeze the whole computer for about 10 seconds and then it comes back normally?

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Chuckles_]

I don't think a PSU can make a "clicking" sound. I would think it's either a HDD or a fan. A HDD malfunctioning could explain the freeze.

 

[Guest]

I don't think a PSU can make a "clicking" sound. I would think it's either a HDD or a fan. A HDD malfunctioning could explain the freeze.

Thanks Chuckles. I considered the hard drives and I ran a scanning utility on both of them which reported that both were in working order. I forgot to mention those in the specs above but they are...

Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD6401AALS (Windows installed)
Seagate 1TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive (Just a storage drive)

I could see it being an issue with one of the drives, but the fact that 95% of the time it runs smooth makes me think that it couldn't be the drives. If there was some kind of problem with them, wouldn't I be having more frequent problems and failures? (This clicking problem has been going on since I built the PC 3 months ago)

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Chuckles_]

Well, HDDs can be weird because internals expand and contract. Anyway, maybe you can open the case, and put it up on the desk near your ear, so that the next time it happens you can figure out where it's coming from.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Yeah, that'd be the thing to do. You need to find out what's making the noise itself. Far easier than guessing where the problem is originating.

 

[badsykes]

Hi
I have pretty same problem but at me after the period of clicking sound (floppy drive mode) it freezes completly with the led lit.In that moment the PC is dead.A restart is only option.Next time i restart the HDD is not recognized anymore or if it's recognized it freezes the screen with Verifying dmi pool data..I have to shutdown completly the PC and boot it up after sometime.
The platform is this:
PII 940BE
4gb ram
Biostart TA790GX A2 + that was exchaged with GA MA 790X UD3p.
640gb Caviar Black exchanged with WDC for a brand new 1tb Caviar black..
Ati 5850
Asus Xonar DX
Windows 7 and was also Windows XP in dual boot.

The 640GB freezed so much that at one point it wouldn't pass anymore the quick test anymore from Data life guard.I exchanged with WDC under guarantee.
The 1tb exhibit same problem.
Seems there is either a bug in the WDC firmware when comunicating with the AMD chipset or the AMD side is the problem.
I told WDC that i still have same problems with the mainboard changed and they escalated the issue.I hope they will get back to me soon..
Now my pc freezes every day at least once...IF this will go on this hdd will begin to fail too..
In your case i have a nice that can be tested..Remove the WDC hdd..Install the OS on your Seagate from scratch and see if with other brand will have same issues..If this happens again with the seagate seems we have an AMD problem...