strange ticks

[d4yl2ank]

When my computer is running an application or for that matter simply running, distictive tickticktickticktick in the background can be heard. It is faint but drives me crazy. Could it be a problem with the voltage, or maybe the harddrive? I am running on an antec neopower 480 watt power supply, powering 2 GB ram, fatal1ty sli, 7800gtx, xfi sound. Maybe other people are running into this problem?

 

[Guest]

While there is the very slight possibility it could be coming out of your motherboard beeper or your soundsystem, it is much more likely to be coming from some moving device. I would start by trying to eliminate the possibility it is a fan making the noise. You could stick your finger or a pencil into each fan temporarily one by one to see if stopping them causes the sound to stop. If it isn't a fan then it must be one of your drives. If that is the case you may have to disassemble a drive to fix it or replace the thing.

 

[d4yl2ank]

it is not actually a fan or motherboard problem, the ticks play through windows. They come out of my speakers, any speakers i hook up. It will tick in the middle of games and just or just when listening to music. anyideas?
thanks

 

[Guest]

Is it the same tick you get when you click a link while browsing the internet? If it is you should try to figure out why your computer would be opening links while you are playing games or other things. There is a sounds and audio devices icon in control panel, you can go in there under the sounds tab and see what sounds are set to go off with which system event. There is a play button at the bottom so you can see what each sound sounds like. You should be able to figure out what is causing the ticking. Perhaps somehow the ticking sound has been assigned to some frequently occuring event by mistake.

 

[jubei_woop]

there could be some electrical intereference. i get alot of noise, ticks, hisses etc with my onboard audio which im assuming comes from intereference. but that is with onboard sound. shouldnt really be happening with the new xfi. try turning down the mic level or turn the mic boost off through windows sound manager, or the blaster software. the mic input always gives off a lot of noise. also, if the soundcard is close the hard disk, you may want to try moving them as far apart as you can. use a different pci slot and move to a different drive tray in the case.