What's this noise?

[jadamso]

Hey Guys,

A few weeks ago I decided to reinstall XP on a new hard drive. Xp installed fine and everything seems to be working apart from now I hear a buzzing sound from inside the case. I've stuck my ear next to it and it doesn't seem to be coming from the hard drive. It sounds like the noise that the processor makes but with a mechanical sound as well, like something revolving. I've taken a vacuum cleaner to the fans (the cpu fan is the old type connected to the rear of the case) but still it persists. It seems it will start every 30 seconds or so and stop if I click somewhere (it reminds me of the indexing service when idle but that has been switched off). Device Manager isn't showing any driver problems either. It is starting to drive me insane!! Any ideas?

I've uploaded an mp3 recording I made using a dictation machine about 2 feet away if it helps:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/80434078c797b414/

P.S. Does anyone know of any free software that will check for driver incompatibilities?

Cheers

J.

[Jay]

it could be the fan bearing on it way out.

[Queelis]

When the PC is off, hold onto the CPU fan and turn the PC on (the CPU won't overheat that quickly). If the sound isn't there, and appears when you let the fan turn, you know the source. If not - carry on searching

[Chanfron]

yeah does sound like fan noise to me.

[innovatao]

Bearing on the fan going by the sounds of things.

[jadamso]

Thanks for the replies.
I thought it could be the fan although it's weird: if the noise starts and i click on an explorer tab it stops! I don't particularly want to keep on doing that every minute.
J

[jonathan_phang]

Could it be the PSU? Before one of my old ones went pop - it was emitting some funny noises too. Bear in mind (no pun intended) that the PSU has fan too - might be that one that could be on the way out. Just open up the case, and get right by it, whilst someone else operated the computer systematically.

[Behemoth]

I was going to say PSU aswell, even my OCZ makes some odd noises when it starts on a really cold morning. If it's not that then its almost certainly your CPU fan or another fan in the PC itself.

[d3fiant]

I've had this, was a bad capacitor on the circuitry relating somehow to USB power, using the mouse stopped the noise, it was a USB mouse, but no use of the mouse and the noise was there, not loud but irritating, in the end the mobo was retired

[merdat]

Yes it could very well be a bad cap. If the board is old then capacitors can start 'bulging' and can cause all sorts of trouble. If it's not that then the PSU would be a prime suspect also as previously stated.

[mightymouse]

i was thinking psu too. its only recently that i started to notice that the pc buzzes during increased activity.

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=85166

[d3fiant]

with regard to the PSU, I have a similar issue with my new system causing feedback into the PSU generating noise, disabling the C1E state in the bios resolved the issue

[jadamso]

Thanks for all the replies.
The computer is getting on a bit (5 years in November) and I've pretty much used it everyday.
As I say it stops when I click on the Start button or right click and I get thirty seconds of bliss. I guess I'm just going to have to build up those wrist muscles!
J.