Noise. TIA

[sandy58]

I am getting a strange noise from inside the box when I
change "pages" ie: go from one poster to another in this
or any other news group, when I play a game, etc.
The noise is a grunting kinda labouring moan. Very short
and stops when I have done whatever I am doing.
I cannot exactly place the location other than saying it comes from
the lower half of my box. Not a "sound card" kinda noise. More
physical..if you know what I mean.
I'm thinking maybe video/graphics card???
Any hints/pointers/help gratefully received, all.
TIA.

 

[GT]

I am getting a strange noise from inside the box when I
change "pages" ie: go from one poster to another in this
or any other news group, when I play a game, etc.
The noise is a grunting kinda labouring moan. Very short
and stops when I have done whatever I am doing.
I cannot exactly place the location other than saying it comes from
the lower half of my box. Not a "sound card" kinda noise. More
physical..if you know what I mean.
I'm thinking maybe video/graphics card???
Any hints/pointers/help gratefully received, all.

OK, the obvious first - take the lid/side off your case and put your ear
down there and figure out where the noise is coming from. Noises like
groaning or rumbling/whining can only come from moving parts, which means a
fan or a hard disk. Fans do have limited lives, so from your description I
would suspect the fan on your graphics card. You should firstly, give it a
clean - it will be clogged with dust and dirt, then you should consider
either replacing the fan or doing a temporary repair by getting a tiny drop
of oil into the fan mechanism (but not near anything else in the pc!).
Beware what oil you use too - this will probably start a big debate, but I
believe 3-in-1 isn't up to the job and WD40 is not an oil, so I would
suggest getting something like a blob of vaseline in there.

 

[John McGaw]

I am getting a strange noise from inside the box when I
change "pages" ie: go from one poster to another in this
or any other news group, when I play a game, etc.
The noise is a grunting kinda labouring moan. Very short
and stops when I have done whatever I am doing.
I cannot exactly place the location other than saying it comes from
the lower half of my box. Not a "sound card" kinda noise. More
physical..if you know what I mean.
I'm thinking maybe video/graphics card???
Any hints/pointers/help gratefully received, all.
TIA.

If the noise is truly synchronized to program execution as you suggest
then mechanical items such as fans seem to be right out of the question.
Even variable speed fans are controlled by temperature and temperature
does not change instantaneously. Ditto with power supply noise which can
rarely occur with large load changes -- just paging through posts
doesn't make much difference there. Your CD/DVD-ROM device shouldn't be
responding to a page flip unless you have stored the pages on that drive.

That pretty much leaves the other major mechanical device in your system
-- the hard drive. Assuming that your drive is not failing it could just
be a matter of a lot of head movement happening to cause the "groan"
when you flip pages. As a first step you might give your drive a really
good defragging. The defrag built into your OS is usable, just barely,
but I prefer PerfectDisk which is a commercial $$$ product. Luckily a
free 30-day trial is available at
http://www.perfectdisk.com/products/downloadit/pd_download_home.cfm

Oh, and it is never a good idea to assume that your hard drive is _not_
failing -- they all seem to die eventually. That is why backups are
important if you value anything that you store on your system.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

That pretty much leaves the other major mechanical device in
your system -- the hard drive. Assuming that your drive is not
failing it could just be a matter of a lot of head movement
happening to cause the "groan" when you flip pages. As a first
step you might give your drive a really good defragging. The
defrag built into your OS is usable, just barely, but I prefer
PerfectDisk which is a commercial $$$ product. Luckily a free
30-day trial is available at: > <http://www.perfectdisk.com/products/downloadit/pd_download_home.cfm>

Be aware that a defrag is the most dangerous thing for your
programs and data, because most machines today don't bother to
enable/install ECC memory control. This means that any momentary
memory error in a disk buffer (caused by such things as cosmic
rays) can leave an error that will not be detected until that
program or data is used. This may be months later, when all
backups are faulty.

The obvious cure is to get and install ECC for your memory system.

 

[NotMe]

| | >I am getting a strange noise from inside the box when I
| > change "pages" ie: go from one poster to another in this
| > or any other news group, when I play a game, etc.
| > The noise is a grunting kinda labouring moan. Very short
| > and stops when I have done whatever I am doing.
| > I cannot exactly place the location other than saying it comes from
| > the lower half of my box. Not a "sound card" kinda noise. More
| > physical..if you know what I mean.
| > I'm thinking maybe video/graphics card???
| > Any hints/pointers/help gratefully received, all.
|
| OK, the obvious first - take the lid/side off your case and put your ear
| down there and figure out where the noise is coming from. Noises like
| groaning or rumbling/whining can only come from moving parts, which means
a
| fan or a hard disk. Fans do have limited lives, so from your description I
| would suspect the fan on your graphics card. You should firstly, give it a
| clean - it will be clogged with dust and dirt, then you should consider
| either replacing the fan or doing a temporary repair by getting a tiny
drop
| of oil into the fan mechanism (but not near anything else in the pc!).
| Beware what oil you use too - this will probably start a big debate, but I
| believe 3-in-1 isn't up to the job and WD40 is not an oil, so I would
| suggest getting something like a blob of vaseline in there.


Air tool oil (can be had at most aftermarket auto parts stores) does an
excellent job. A trick I picked up from an old tool and dye man.

 

[John McGaw]

Be aware that a defrag is the most dangerous thing for your
programs and data, because most machines today don't bother to
enable/install ECC memory control. This means that any momentary
memory error in a disk buffer (caused by such things as cosmic
rays) can leave an error that will not be detected until that
program or data is used. This may be months later, when all
backups are faulty.

The obvious cure is to get and install ECC for your memory system.

I have do disagree with that statement. The _most_ dangerous thing is to
fail to do proper backups. I would place defragging way down the list as
long as the program in question uses the proper APIs when shuffling data
around. If data in memory were really that prone to corruption then we
would be seeing it happening constantly since virtually all of the
memory in any system is constantly in use for something and it is being
swapped in and out to disk constantly. In fact, if these
cosmic-ray-induced memory failures were at all common then one would
find every computer equipped with ECC in a struggle to keep them
operational but the fact is that most MBs do not support it even if the
user did want to install it.

Every drive on all of my machines is defragged automatically at least
once a week and I see no reason to modify that practice.

 

[sandy58]

I am getting a strange noise from inside the box when I
change "pages" ie: go from one poster to another in this
or any other news group, when I play a game, etc.
The noise is a grunting kinda labouring moan. Very short
and stops when I have done whatever I am doing.
I cannot exactly place the location other than saying it comes from
the lower half of my box. Not a "sound card" kinda noise. More
physical..if you know what I mean.
I'm thinking maybe video/graphics card???
Any hints/pointers/help gratefully received, all.
TIA.

Thank you very much for all your input, guys. I'll certainly follow
several, if not all tips and hints. ATB
sandy58

 

[CBFalconer]

I have do disagree with that statement. The _most_ dangerous thing
is to fail to do proper backups. I would place defragging way down
the list as long as the program in question uses the proper APIs
when shuffling data around. If data in memory were really that
prone to corruption then we would be seeing it happening constantly
since virtually all of the memory in any system is constantly in
use for something and it is being swapped in and out to disk
constantly. In fact, if these cosmic-ray-induced memory failures
were at all common then one would find every computer equipped with
ECC in a struggle to keep them operational but the fact is that
most MBs do not support it even if the user did want to install it.

Every drive on all of my machines is defragged automatically at
least once a week and I see no reason to modify that practice.

You have just demonstrated that the chance of those errors is
fairly low in your environment, and that when they occur they have
not been affecting something critical. The point is that you are
totally unprotected against such errors. When they do eventually
occur you will pay and pay. And you may not recognize the cause at
all.

 

[meow2222]

| news:[email protected]...

| >I am getting a strange noise from inside the box when I
| > change "pages" ie: go from one poster to another in this
| > or any other news group, when I play a game, etc.
| > The noise is a grunting kinda labouring moan. Very short
| > and stops when I have done whatever I am doing.
| > I cannot exactly place the location other than saying it comes from
| > the lower half of my box. Not a "sound card" kinda noise. More
| > physical..if you know what I mean.
| > I'm thinking maybe video/graphics card???
| > Any hints/pointers/help gratefully received, all.
|
| OK, the obvious first - take the lid/side off your case and put your ear
| down there and figure out where the noise is coming from. Noises like
| groaning or rumbling/whining can only come from moving parts, which means
a
| fan or a hard disk. Fans do have limited lives, so from your description I
| would suspect the fan on your graphics card. You should firstly, give it a
| clean - it will be clogged with dust and dirt, then you should consider
| either replacing the fan or doing a temporary repair by getting a tiny
drop
| of oil into the fan mechanism (but not near anything else in the pc!).
| Beware what oil you use too - this will probably start a big debate, but I
| believe 3-in-1 isn't up to the job and WD40 is not an oil, so I would
| suggest getting something like a blob of vaseline in there.


Air tool oil (can be had at most aftermarket auto parts stores) does an
excellent job. A trick I picked up from an old tool and dye man.

Machine oil or mineral is also sold as baby oil (with a tiny amount
of fragrance added), and this is within easy convenient and cheap
reach of anyone.


NT

 

[meow2222]

You have just demonstrated that the chance of those errors is
fairly low in your environment, and that when they occur they have
not been affecting something critical. The point is that you are
totally unprotected against such errors. When they do eventually
occur you will pay and pay. And you may not recognize the cause at
all.

I'd recommend running memtest86 overnight the day before you do
a defrag. Otherwise data corruption can occur. If you find any ram
errors, _dont_ defrag.


NT

 

[sandy58]

I am getting a strange noise from inside the box when I
change "pages" ie: go from one poster to another in this
or any other news group, when I play a game, etc.
The noise is a grunting kinda labouring moan. Very short
and stops when I have done whatever I am doing.
I cannot exactly place the location other than saying it comes from
the lower half of my box. Not a "sound card" kinda noise. More
physical..if you know what I mean.
I'm thinking maybe video/graphics card???
Any hints/pointers/help gratefully received, all.
TIA.

Noise ceased. I removed the video card (nVidia G-Force) & noticed that
the clip was loose.
Also the card was not fully seated due to the screw (holding the card)
and hole were slightly out of whack putting enough strain on one end
to pull the card just a little out of the slot. Fixed that and so far
no more noise. Thanks again, guys.
sandy58

 

[CBFalconer]

I'd recommend running memtest86 overnight the day before you do
a defrag. Otherwise data corruption can occur. If you find any ram
errors, _dont_ defrag.

That goes without saying, and doesn't even begin to protect against
the type of errors to which I am referring. With ECC it is all
unneeded.

 

[kony]

Machine oil or mineral is also sold as baby oil (with a tiny amount
of fragrance added), and this is within easy convenient and cheap
reach of anyone.

If the fan is a ball bearing type it is time to replace it
as any oil might temporarily keep it alive but will
drastically increase the noise level, unless it is a one
ball + one sleeve design and even then the noise level may
go up.

If a sleeve bearing fan it is important to use the right
viscosity of oil, otherwise it will run out of the bearing,
provide insufficient lubrication. The right viscosity is
not so thick as to be vasoline and not so thin as to be
machine oil. The right viscosity has a drop-point just
below room temp and is about the thickest oil available,
like 80wt gear oil. Even a drop of oil off a car dipstick
(~ 5-10wt) would be far better than grease or light machine
oil.

The interesting part is that the mechanical factors and
science isn't considered when choosing oil viscosity. The
viscosity or thickness depends on the space in the bearing,
I mean the space once that bearing has worn to the point of
making noise. Grease does not flow (unless there were a
reserve of oil in the bearing cavity still with which it
mixed to become thinner than grease, but if there were these
oil reserve it would be unlikely the fan were wearing out by
running dry in the first place). Thin oil just runs out of
the bearing and does not provide a sufficiently think film
so the fan shaft continues to wobble in the bearing which
not only wears the bearing more, but pumps it out of the
bearing faster in conjunction with gravity causing same when
used in a fan having non-vertical mounting.

The curious part is that if it were a fan, it would change
this much based on the system load... and it might be a sign
the PSU is inadequate for the system (or failing) and
varying voltage (12V rail) too much. Then again a failing
fan can be fickle, this would only be a consideration of the
fan itself still does this but has reponded well to being
lubed.

 

[meow2222]

That goes without saying,

It would in an ideal world, but most users dont think to memtest
first, and win-all doesnt either.

and doesn't even begin to protect against
the type of errors to which I am referring.

no, but then its not a significant issue, and good backup policy
does protect against it.


NT

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

It would in an ideal world, but most users dont think to memtest
first, and win-all doesnt either.


no, but then its not a significant issue, and good backup policy
does protect against it.

You obviously didn't bother to read the quotations - I have left
the appropriate one. Without ECC your backups can be fouled, and
you don't know it.

 

[kony]

no, but then its not a significant issue, and good backup policy
does protect against it.

How does a good backup policy protect? The data is corrupt
while in memory, making results of any calculations or files
(prior to) written to disk, potentially corrupt. Regardless
of whether you feel it's very likely, making the backup just
passes the data through main system memory a couple more
times, that much more likely the eventual memory errors will
be significant. The chance might be very small but the
backup is as vulnerable as the original in many cases.