spinning noise

[flywheel]

When I start up my PC (just every now and then) I get this strange spinning noise-- almost like if you had a CD in your drive and it was unbalanced. However, no CD is in the drive at the time. I just built this PC about 3-4 weeks ago and everything seems to work fine but I just have this spinning noise now and then....it's strange! If I shut the PC down and start it back up it's gone. Any ideas? Could this be the heat sink fan? My case is an Enlight which has a fan in the front and in the power supply area but both of those seem quite. The HSF is the stock fan on a Thermaltake Volcano II. I was worried also that maybe my hard drive (WD BA205) was acting up...but it seems to work fine and the PC continues to boot as it's making this noise. I would just pull off the side panel and try and trace the sound but it may not happen again for another week!!!

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[OldBear]

The best way to find the sound is to do as you suggested. Pull the side panel off and listen.

<font color=blue>Remember.... You get what you pay for. All advice here is free.</font color=blue>

 

[knowan]

There's a few possibalities here:

1) You have boot from CD enabled in your BIOS. When you start up the computer it spins the drive searching for a boot disk.

2) You have an unbalanced platter in your hard drive. If you have a large hard drive it may have 2 or more platters. Providing your hard drive is mostly empty, you may have very little stored on the second platter, meaning that it on ly occasionally has to access the second platter and starts making noise. Offhand I don't think that this is very likely, but it may be a possibilaty. If it is true then eventiually you HD will fail.

3) You have a fan that is set up to power up or down depending on CPU temp or something similar. Aternatly, you have a fan that isn't plugged in correctly and only occasionally recieves enough power to spin up.

4) you have gremilins

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[HonestJhon]

i like the gremlin idea!
just listen and watch...you will be able to localize the sound source by doing that.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[cprfan]

When I start up my PC (just every now and then) I get this strange spinning noise-- almost like if you had a CD in your drive and it was unbalanced.

I had this problem at one time, after a few minutes, the noise would go away. Turns out that the bearings in the power supply fan were shot, replaced it and all was fine...

 

[labdog]

i prefer the gremlins solution or maybe an unusual sound due to the novelty of the pc.


if you know you don't know, the way could be more easy.

 

[OldBear]

I believe gremlins cause more problems than we are aware of.

<font color=blue>Remember.... You get what you pay for. All advice here is free.</font color=blue>

 

[labdog]

yes, right


if you know you don't know, the way could be more easy.

 

[flywheel]

Well get this!!! It started occurring more often and I finally was able to get the case apart in time to diagnose the problem. It was a little HSF that comes stock on the north bridge of my mobo (Shuttle AK31) seems the bearings in this one must be bad too b/c it makes almost a grinding noise and then almost comes to a stop. I unplugged it while it was making the noise and it stopped!

I just got done writing a good review for this mobo on New Egg yesterday and I realize that Shuttle is going to have little problems like this...but now I'm gonna have to tear down my whole system so I can send it back. So...as you can imagine...I'm pissed!!!

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[OldBear]

Can't blame you. I would be to.

<font color=blue>Remember.... You get what you pay for. All advice here is free.</font color=blue>

 

[HonestJhon]

yeah...i would be too..


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[CALV]

dam fans, they ALWAYS do it, my gf2 one went, as did the one on my northbridge, replaced the fan (and heatsink) on the northbridge with a socket7 hsf, the gf2 one I took off as the noise annoyed me and I havnt got round to putting one on as I play to watercool the card sometime in the future. I'd be tem,pted to replace the fan rather than rip the system apart.

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