sporadic PC dying, weird "whining" noise - but it's NOT the HDs...maybe bad cpu/video?

[walter]

my PC has been dying every few hours the last couple of weeks.
running XPsp2HOME. it's not a BSOD.

when i come back to it, the screen is frozen and everything is
locked. i do a hard reboot, and it comes up saying "the system has
recovered from a serious error". there's some XML dump that i cant
really interpret.

i thought a HD was failing. but i tried running linux from a CDROM,
and the same thing happens. it freezes up.

there is a high-pitched whining sound, which i thought was coming from
the failing HD. but it's not. when i boot to the CDROM, i completely
disconnected all of the HDs. the high pitched whining sound is still
there.

so i started thinking it might be the power-supply that's failing.

however, the pitch of the whining seems to rise/fall with movements of
various things across the screen...i.e., when the CPU/video-chip is
doing some "work" to render the visuals.

might that be some sort of failure of a component on the motherboard?
it's a compaq s3100nx with an AMD Athlon. the video subsystem is on
the motherboard (VIA ProSavageDDR) with one of those shared video ram
UMA architectures.

 

[Grinder]

my PC has been dying every few hours the last couple of weeks.
running XPsp2HOME. it's not a BSOD.

when i come back to it, the screen is frozen and everything is
locked. i do a hard reboot, and it comes up saying "the system has
recovered from a serious error". there's some XML dump that i cant
really interpret.

i thought a HD was failing. but i tried running linux from a CDROM,
and the same thing happens. it freezes up.

there is a high-pitched whining sound, which i thought was coming from
the failing HD. but it's not. when i boot to the CDROM, i completely
disconnected all of the HDs. the high pitched whining sound is still
there.

so i started thinking it might be the power-supply that's failing.

however, the pitch of the whining seems to rise/fall with movements of
various things across the screen...i.e., when the CPU/video-chip is
doing some "work" to render the visuals.

might that be some sort of failure of a component on the motherboard?
it's a compaq s3100nx with an AMD Athlon. the video subsystem is on
the motherboard (VIA ProSavageDDR) with one of those shared video ram
UMA architectures.

It might be a fan that's failing. You can localize the sound by using a
paper towel tube against your ear--move it around until you find the
source of the noise.

Also, the nature of your failure suggest it's a heat-related problem.
Open up your case and aim a box fan at it. If your lockups go away it's
likely that your original failures are from the system getting too hot.
You can probably remedy that by cleaning dust out of the system,
dressing components to improve air flow, and/or adding a fan or two.

 

[walter]

it's not the CPU fan, nor is in the enclosure fan. both fans i stop
with a finger, with no effect on the sound.

it might be a power-supp fan, but the fact that the sound is
apparently tied to computing activity suggests (to me, at least) that
it's not the power-supp fan either.

i've been running the machine w/ the cover completely off, and it
still locks up.

w

 

[kony]

my PC has been dying every few hours the last couple of weeks.
running XPsp2HOME. it's not a BSOD.

You didn't list all major components, incl. PSU make and
model.

when i come back to it, the screen is frozen and everything is
locked. i do a hard reboot, and it comes up saying "the system has
recovered from a serious error". there's some XML dump that i cant
really interpret.

i thought a HD was failing. but i tried running linux from a CDROM,
and the same thing happens. it freezes up.

there is a high-pitched whining sound, which i thought was coming from
the failing HD. but it's not. when i boot to the CDROM, i completely
disconnected all of the HDs. the high pitched whining sound is still
there.

so i started thinking it might be the power-supply that's failing.

Whining can come from fan bearings but prior to there being
a sort of grinding noise instead of just high pitched whine,
the fan is usually still running fine... it's when you cease
hearing the fan noise that the fan has locked up and since
it isn't spinning would potentially cause overheating... but
a failed fan is easily spotted by visual examination.

however, the pitch of the whining seems to rise/fall with movements of
various things across the screen...i.e., when the CPU/video-chip is
doing some "work" to render the visuals.

Some PSU whine even when new, as do some motherboards.
While it is a poor/defective inductor causing it in the case
where it otherwise works fine, a degradation in function can
also cause it. Similarly the video card may have inductors
prone to it but having the pitch change from rendering load
is not necessarily a sign it is the video card as this also
causes a change in current delivery to the video card, and
CPU.

might that be some sort of failure of a component on the motherboard?
it's a compaq s3100nx with an AMD Athlon. the video subsystem is on
the motherboard (VIA ProSavageDDR) with one of those shared video ram
UMA architectures.

If you can get your fingers around each inductor safely,
while system is running, you might see if applying a bit of
pressure to them changes the pitch or eliminates the sound.
Putting a straw to your ear and directing it around the
system might also help in pinpointing the sound but be very
careful as accidentally putting it in contact with a fan
blade could be bad for your ear, and such high pitched
sounds are often more difficult to determine directionally.

Regardless of the above I would tend to suspect the PSU
first since the noise did not occur previously? You might
unplug AC power from it for a few minutes then open and
inspect it... most likely failing capacitors near the
output, the larger ones around the exiting wiring harness.

 

[kickflier]

You didn't list all major components, incl. PSU make and
model.







Whining can come from fan bearings but prior to there being
a sort of grinding noise instead of just high pitched whine,
the fan is usually still running fine... it's when you cease
hearing the fan noise that the fan has locked up and since
it isn't spinning would potentially cause overheating... but
a failed fan is easily spotted by visual examination.




Some PSU whine even when new, as do some motherboards.
While it is a poor/defective inductor causing it in the case
where it otherwise works fine, a degradation in function can
also cause it. Similarly the video card may have inductors
prone to it but having the pitch change from rendering load
is not necessarily a sign it is the video card as this also
causes a change in current delivery to the video card, and
CPU.




If you can get your fingers around each inductor safely,
while system is running, you might see if applying a bit of
pressure to them changes the pitch or eliminates the sound.
Putting a straw to your ear and directing it around the
system might also help in pinpointing the sound but be very
careful as accidentally putting it in contact with a fan
blade could be bad for your ear, and such high pitched
sounds are often more difficult to determine directionally.

Regardless of the above I would tend to suspect the PSU
first since the noise did not occur previously? You might
unplug AC power from it for a few minutes then open and
inspect it... most likely failing capacitors near the
output, the larger ones around the exiting wiring harness.

Hello,
I have a ECS mother board intel socketed 775 with 3.2 processor and
huge 120mm fan and hyperthreading heat sink

ive recently had not had enough ram (256mb) it always froze due to the
fact that there was too many programs running right when i started up
so i had to go in task manager to close some of them to be able to run
the computer

well i put the ram in and i was holding onto the case.. and everything
and i put the ram in but then i went to turn on the computer and the
sound has a whining noise..
i checked and its not the fans..
i pulled out the 4 prong 5volt or 4.5 volt or w/e it is on the moter
board and the wining went away..
when i powered my computer on with the 4 prong power to main board the
computer never showed up on the monitor just like it did when i had
two 256 sticks of ram that were not compatible..

im currently running a converter power supply 20 pin to 24 pin.. but i
dont know if it could be affecting the volts or anything..

do you guys think it could be that power supply?
Motherboard is fried?
or the ram is bad?


please help me out

 

[kony]

Hello,
I have a ECS mother board intel socketed 775 with 3.2 processor and
huge 120mm fan and hyperthreading heat sink

ive recently had not had enough ram (256mb) it always froze due to the
fact that there was too many programs running right when i started up
so i had to go in task manager to close some of them to be able to run
the computer

well i put the ram in and i was holding onto the case.. and everything
and i put the ram in but then i went to turn on the computer and the
sound has a whining noise..
i checked and its not the fans..

i pulled out the 4 prong 5volt or 4.5 volt or w/e it is on the moter
board and the wining went away..

What exactly does this sentence mean? Can you elaborate?

when i powered my computer on with the 4 prong power to main board the
computer never showed up on the monitor just like it did when i had
two 256 sticks of ram that were not compatible..

If you mean the 4-pin 12V connector for CPU power, you must
have that plugged into run practically any semi-modern
motherboard.

im currently running a converter power supply 20 pin to 24 pin.. but i
dont know if it could be affecting the volts or anything..

Please elaborate on this too.
Depending on what you're doing, you might have a voltage
loss in the conversion and that may or not not cause some
problems, or it might be random (bad) luck that the voltage
change in itself is not a problem but causes a particular
subcircuit to switch an inductor in it's resonant frequency.
This is usually a fairly high pitched tone and sometimes you
can find that noisey inductor by taking your fingers and
firmly depressing around the coils of the inductor while you
hear the sound.

do you guys think it could be that power supply?
Motherboard is fried?
or the ram is bad?

If your system exhibits no other problems besides the
whining sound, the first step would be to find the source of
the sound and then decide if you can reasonably make the
alternations necessary to effect that sound-producing
mechanism, even if it means something a bit more
mechanically crude like painting some epoxy onto the
inductor coils. Some are impossible to (reasonably) paint
like this, for example on a motherboard with integrated
networking you may not have access to a coil in the lan
jack.

In other cases you'd have to decide if the sound was
annoying enough to replace some part solely to eliminate the
noise. You didn't mention all the parts in your system nor
how important it is to fix this problem.

 

[kickflier]

What exactly does this sentence mean? Can you elaborate?


If you mean the 4-pin 12V connector for CPU power, you must
have that plugged into run practically any semi-modern
motherboard.




Please elaborate on this too.
Depending on what you're doing, you might have a voltage
loss in the conversion and that may or not not cause some
problems, or it might be random (bad) luck that the voltage
change in itself is not a problem but causes a particular
subcircuit to switch an inductor in it's resonant frequency.
This is usually a fairly high pitched tone and sometimes you
can find that noisey inductor by taking your fingers and
firmly depressing around the coils of the inductor while you
hear the sound.




If your system exhibits no other problems besides the
whining sound, the first step would be to find the source of
the sound and then decide if you can reasonably make the
alternations necessary to effect that sound-producing
mechanism, even if it means something a bit more
mechanically crude like painting some epoxy onto the
inductor coils. Some are impossible to (reasonably) paint
like this, for example on a motherboard with integrated
networking you may not have access to a coil in the lan
jack.

In other cases you'd have to decide if the sound was
annoying enough to replace some part solely to eliminate the
noise. You didn't mention all the parts in your system nor
how important it is to fix this problem.

hello, well heres what i have

Ecs motherboard socketed 775 915P-A rev. 1.1
intel pent 4 3.2 processor
hyperthreading heat sink (huger) with a 120mm fan
netgear wirless card
nivida 32mb video card dual monitor
1 stick of DDR 256mb of ddr ram 184 pin in slot A, theres DDR 2 (2
slots) and DDR (2 slots)
Antec 350w PSU 20pin w/ a converter to 24pin
2 hardrives (1 40gig) and (1 60gig) Ides

ive takin all the stuff out possible such as the video card,wirless
card and hardrives
then it still did it
i took out the 4 pronged power supply that is by my processor under my
heat sink and it doesnt make the noise anymore..
seached about antec power supplys (true power) or w/e they are which
is what i have and they said after a period of time the voltage in the
4 prong is 5volts but after a peroid of time the voltage slowly goes
down and screws up stuff to the point where it is very hard to tell
what the problem is and causes failure in running , they said it
doesnt destroy anything just messes up stuff when running and causes
it to fail such as turn off..


THE MAIN PROBLEM IS:
When i power on my computer all hooked up , it wont show up on my
monitor like it did when i had 2 non compatiable memory sticks, so i
put one in and it worked fine...that was before this all happend..
now theres that big loud id call a ring/buzz noise or whining noise
( not from the fans or anything its from the MoBo speaker) and nothing
will show up on the monitor , i have already tried trading out same
exact video card.. same deal happens...


i wonder if it was my ram i could of fried...

please help me out ! thanks alot

 

[kony]

Ecs motherboard socketed 775 915P-A rev. 1.1
intel pent 4 3.2 processor
hyperthreading heat sink (huger) with a 120mm fan
netgear wirless card
nivida 32mb video card dual monitor
1 stick of DDR 256mb of ddr ram 184 pin in slot A, theres DDR 2 (2
slots) and DDR (2 slots)
Antec 350w PSU 20pin w/ a converter to 24pin
2 hardrives (1 40gig) and (1 60gig) Ides

ive takin all the stuff out possible such as the video card,wirless
card and hardrives
then it still did it
i took out the 4 pronged power supply that is by my processor under my
heat sink and it doesnt make the noise anymore..

You need to determine where the noise is coming from. Your
board has 4 doughnut-shaped inductors in a row above the 4
pin power socket, if you can get your hand in to access this
area (if heatsink isn't in the way) while the system is
making the noise, you can firmly press on the sides of the
inductor coils to see if it eliminates or greatly reduces
the noise.

Why do you have the 20-24 pin adapter? It may not be doing
anything useful, on many boards with 24 pin power socket,
all you have to do is plug the 20 pin PSU plug into the
first 20 pins leaving the last 2 rows unused.

seached about antec power supplys (true power) or w/e they are which
is what i have and they said after a period of time the voltage in the
4 prong is 5volts but after a peroid of time the voltage slowly goes
down and screws up stuff to the point where it is very hard to tell
what the problem is and causes failure in running , they said it
doesnt destroy anything just messes up stuff when running and causes
it to fail such as turn off..

You need to determine if this hearsay is a situation
actually occuring in your system or not. Take voltage
readings, preferribly with a multimeter and especially with
a multimeter if your 12V reading is measuring the 12V lead
to the 20-24 pin connector instead of the 4 pin connector.

THE MAIN PROBLEM IS:
When i power on my computer all hooked up , it wont show up on my
monitor like it did when i had 2 non compatiable memory sticks, so i
put one in and it worked fine...that was before this all happend..

I don't understand then, why you are mentioning noise
instead of the primary problem. The noise issue is
distracting against a typical failure-to-post problem.

What was changed on the system just prior to it first
failing to POST, and is there anything you can do to cause
it to start POSTing again? Have you tried clearing CMOS?

now theres that big loud id call a ring/buzz noise or whining noise
( not from the fans or anything its from the MoBo speaker) and nothing
will show up on the monitor , i have already tried trading out same
exact video card.. same deal happens...


i wonder if it was my ram i could of fried...

With the system unstable from two memory modules, it should
only fail to post, not damage either one. If you are sure
both modules or at least the one you are using now was
working previously, it might be possible that it now has ESD
damage, or some other problem... this I cannot say for
certain, you need to do the typical things to troubleshoot
without paying attention to the noise yet.

Take voltage readings.
Inspect all connectors, cards, cables, etc.
Clear CMOS
Inspect motherboard for failed capacitors
Leave only minimal parts in system - CPU, heatsink/fan,
video card, 1 memory module.
With any suspect parts, try them in another system or swap
parts that are still known to be working properly into that
system.

 

[kickflier]

You need to determine where the noise is coming from. Your
board has 4 doughnut-shaped inductors in a row above the 4
pin power socket, if you can get your hand in to access this
area (if heatsink isn't in the way) while the system is
making the noise, you can firmly press on the sides of the
inductor coils to see if it eliminates or greatly reduces
the noise.

Why do you have the 20-24 pin adapter? It may not be doing
anything useful, on many boards with 24 pin power socket,
all you have to do is plug the 20 pin PSU plug into the
first 20 pins leaving the last 2 rows unused.


You need to determine if this hearsay is a situation
actually occuring in your system or not. Take voltage
readings, preferribly with a multimeter and especially with
a multimeter if your 12V reading is measuring the 12V lead
to the 20-24 pin connector instead of the 4 pin connector.




I don't understand then, why you are mentioning noise
instead of the primary problem. The noise issue is
distracting against a typical failure-to-post problem.

What was changed on the system just prior to it first
failing to POST, and is there anything you can do to cause
it to start POSTing again? Have you tried clearing CMOS?



With the system unstable from two memory modules, it should
only fail to post, not damage either one. If you are sure
both modules or at least the one you are using now was
working previously, it might be possible that it now has ESD
damage, or some other problem... this I cannot say for
certain, you need to do the typical things to troubleshoot
without paying attention to the noise yet.

Take voltage readings.
Inspect all connectors, cards, cables, etc.
Clear CMOS
Inspect motherboard for failed capacitors
Leave only minimal parts in system - CPU, heatsink/fan,
video card, 1 memory module.
With any suspect parts, try them in another system or swap
parts that are still known to be working properly into that
system.

I finally took out my motherboard..
i looked very closely and the sound is comin from around the pci and
agp slots
over on the left corner of the board.. where the capacitors and are...
it has a sound of like a piece of paper in a fan
....i have no clue what could of happend..
ive cleared the cmos before..

 

[Paul]

I finally took out my motherboard..
i looked very closely and the sound is comin from around the pci and
agp slots
over on the left corner of the board.. where the capacitors and are...
it has a sound of like a piece of paper in a fan
...i have no clue what could of happend..
ive cleared the cmos before..

In the lower left corner of the board, that could be the audio
chip. Audio is via CMI9880. I don't know of anything that would be
prone to make noise there. They sometimes have a small linear
regulator to give clean power to the audio chip, and that shouldn't
make any audible noise.

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=6&id=1406

There is a piezoelectric speaker near the bottom center of the
motherboard. Would be noise be coming from there ?

Paul