Unusual computer noise

  • Thread starter Thread starter John R. Sellers
  • Start date Start date
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John R. Sellers

Every few minutes, my computer sounds like it's reving up for something,
then it slows down almost immediately. It doesn't sound normal to me.
 
"John R. Sellers" said in news:[email protected]:
Every few minutes, my computer sounds like it's reving up for
something, then it slows down almost immediately. It doesn't sound
normal to me.
Click to expand...

I have that now with a fan (haven't localized to the CPU or NB fan yet) where occasionally it seems to get out of balance and vibrate for a minute and then goes quiet again.

Or are maybe you talking about something trying to access the disc in your usually idle CD-ROM drive? This makes the CD drive spin up and then go quiescent when there are no further accesses.

Maybe you're talking about a slew of hard disk thrashing, a very busy disk with its heads bouncing all over. Could be due to the Index Service left enabled. Could be you have a defrag or virus scan scheduled (and don't have the option to pend the scheduled task until the computer has been idle some minimum number of minutes).
 
P4 CPU???

This is normal when the CPU is doing something heavy duty. Could be the
drive indexing service in XP as well.
 
"John R. Sellers" said in news:[email protected]:
Every few minutes, my computer sounds like it's reving up for
something, then it slows down almost immediately. It doesn't sound
normal to me.
Click to expand...

I have that now with a fan (haven't localized to the CPU or NB fan yet)
where occasionally it seems to get out of balance and vibrate for a minute
and then goes quiet again.

I beleive it's the fan. I was listening to my PC closely. Seems to be
coming from the chasis fan.

I had to replace a noisy fan, and my PC is quieter, and now it pulls this
crap on me. My computer hates me.
 
"John R. Sellers" said in news:[email protected]:
message "John R. Sellers" said in news:[email protected]:

I have that now with a fan (haven't localized to the CPU or NB fan
yet) where occasionally it seems to get out of balance and vibrate
for a minute and then goes quiet again.

I beleive it's the fan. I was listening to my PC closely. Seems to
be coming from the chasis fan.

I had to replace a noisy fan, and my PC is quieter, and now it pulls
this crap on me. My computer hates me.
Click to expand...

Ever notice in an otherwise quiet room that when one person starts coughing then others also start coughing? One fan goes dead and gets replaced so the other decides, what the hell, me, too.
 
*Vanguard* said:
Ever notice in an otherwise quiet room that when one person starts coughing
Click to expand...
then others also start coughing? One fan goes >dead and gets replaced so
the other decides, what the hell, me, too.

Seems l.ike everything's contagiuos in one way or another.

Anyway, I turned my PC off for a while. I turned it back on a several
minutes later. It's been on 'bout 30 minutes...no "rev-ups" so far.
 
John said:
then others also start coughing? One fan goes >dead and gets
replaced so the other decides, what the hell, me, too.

Seems l.ike everything's contagiuos in one way or another.

Anyway, I turned my PC off for a while. I turned it back on a several
minutes later. It's been on 'bout 30 minutes...no "rev-ups" so far.
Click to expand...

Let me guess - it's a Dell, right?!
 
"John R. Sellers" said in mine > then others also start coughing? One fan goes >dead and gets
mine > replaced so the other decides, what the hell, me, too.yours> Seems l.ike everything's contagiuos in one way or another.
yours>
yours> Anyway, I turned my PC off for a while. I turned it back on a several
yours> minutes later. It's been on 'bout 30 minutes...no "rev-ups" so far.

For future reference, please enable your e-mail client's feature to prefix quoted lines with a character, like the ">". Otherwise, the included content from the other post looks like it is your reply or, alternatively, there is no separation between your post and the included content. It makes it easier if readers can distinguish your part from the others.

Since you are using Outlook Express (according to the headers of your posts), go to Tools menu -> Options -> Send. Under "HTML Settings", enable the "Indent message on reply" option. Under the "Plain Text Settings", enable the "Indent the original text with <char> when replying or forwarding" option; the ">" is the standard indentation character. For newsgroups, select to use Plain Text as the format.

Thanks.
 
*Vanguard* said:
Since you are using Outlook Express (according to the headers of your
Click to expand...
posts), go to Tools menu -> Options -> Send. >Under "HTML Settings",
enable the "Indent message on reply" option. Under the "Plain Text
Settings", enable >the "Indent the original text with <char> when replying
or forwarding" option; the ">" is the standard indentation character.

For some reason, OE seems to not indent only when replying to your messages.
I had to insert the ">" manually.

It indented automatically when I replied to Cerridwen. Maybe your
newsreader's the culprit.
For newsgroups, select to use Plain Text as the format.
Click to expand...

I do.
 
John R. Sellers said:
Every few minutes, my computer sounds like it's reving up
for something, then it slows down almost immediately. It
doesn't sound normal to me.
Click to expand...

I found that even tiny changes in voltage can cause very noticeable
changes in fan noise, and when the HD heads move the +12V may decrease
slightly. Also I have a couple of PSUs that regulate their fans not
only by temperature but also by load -- the more the +5V is loaded,
the faster their fan runs.
 
John R. Sellers said:
Every few minutes, my computer sounds like it's reving up for
something, then it slows down almost immediately. It doesn't sound
normal to me.
Click to expand...

Possibly the CDROM spinning up to access some data or perhaps you have a
thermal control fan that kicks on when the CPU reaches a certain
temperature.
 
Paul Proteus said:
Possibly the CDROM spinning up to access some data or perhaps you have a
thermal control fan that kicks on when the CPU reaches a certain
temperature.
Click to expand...

As I said, the "rev-up" problem is solved. Now, my problem is that when I
run certain CPU-intensive programs such as AVG Anti-Virus or my music
converter (just tried converting 7 files...it converted 1 & a half), my PC
simply shuts down. Disk Defrag ran through fine.

[sigh] I have my fan replaced cuz I had a loud fan, then my PC gets quieter,
and now it pulls this crap on me. I tell ya', my next PC will definitely
NOT be a Dell.

I really hope we start seeing water-cooled PCs in the stores relatively soon
(see http://www.cooligy.com/).
 
As I said, the "rev-up" problem is solved. Now, my problem is that when I
run certain CPU-intensive programs such as AVG Anti-Virus or my music
converter (just tried converting 7 files...it converted 1 & a half), my PC
simply shuts down. Disk Defrag ran through fine.

[sigh] I have my fan replaced cuz I had a loud fan, then my PC gets quieter,
and now it pulls this crap on me. I tell ya', my next PC will definitely
NOT be a Dell.

I really hope we start seeing water-cooled PCs in the stores relatively soon
(see http://www.cooligy.com/).
Click to expand...

If they can't get a simple fan-cooling setup working well why would it be
a good idea to INCREASE the complexity of the cooling subsystem?... just
more to go wrong.

Determine why the system is shutting down. Possibly the fan installation
disturbed a card or wires, or the fan shroud wasn't reinstalled correctly.
Check the motherboard voltage levels and CPU temp.
 
John R. Sellers said:
Paul Proteus said:
Possibly the CDROM spinning up to access some data or perhaps you have a
thermal control fan that kicks on when the CPU reaches a certain
temperature.
Click to expand...

As I said, the "rev-up" problem is solved. Now, my problem is that when I
run certain CPU-intensive programs such as AVG Anti-Virus or my music
converter (just tried converting 7 files...it converted 1 & a half), my PC
simply shuts down. Disk Defrag ran through fine.

[sigh] I have my fan replaced cuz I had a loud fan, then my PC gets quieter,
and now it pulls this crap on me. I tell ya', my next PC will definitely
NOT be a Dell.

I really hope we start seeing water-cooled PCs in the stores relatively soon
(see http://www.cooligy.com/).
Click to expand...

So you went from a noisy working fan that cooled your CPU properly to a
quiet fan that doesn't do the job of cooling your CPU? That's what it sounds
like to me.

Can you run the PC with the cover off and a large fan pointed into it to see
if cooling is indeed the issue?

Might want to check wiring inside the case to make sure nothing is tangling
in the fan. I've had customers complain of buzzing noises and the fan wire
was touching the spinning fan blades.
 
kony said:
If they can't get a simple fan-cooling setup working well why would it be
a good idea to INCREASE the complexity of the cooling subsystem?... just
more to go wrong.
Click to expand...

Ask Cooligy, not me.
 
John R. Sellers said:
Paul Proteus said:
Possibly the CDROM spinning up to access some data or perhaps you
have a thermal control fan that kicks on when the CPU reaches a
certain temperature.
Click to expand...

As I said, the "rev-up" problem is solved. Now, my problem is that
when I run certain CPU-intensive programs such as AVG Anti-Virus or
my music converter (just tried converting 7 files...it converted 1 &
a half), my PC simply shuts down. Disk Defrag ran through fine.

[sigh] I have my fan replaced cuz I had a loud fan, then my PC gets
quieter, and now it pulls this crap on me. I tell ya', my next PC
will definitely NOT be a Dell.

I really hope we start seeing water-cooled PCs in the stores
relatively soon (see http://www.cooligy.com/).
Click to expand...

Make sure the replacement fan has the same or a better rate of air movement
than the one you replaced. You might want to put the old fan back in to see
if the problem goes away. You may also want to make sure that the fan is
blowing in the right direction. :-)
 
Paul Proteus said:
Make sure the replacement fan has the same or a better rate of air movement
than the one you replaced. You might want to put the old fan back in to see
if the problem goes away. You may also want to make sure that the fan is
blowing in the right direction. :-)
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll try that.
 
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