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Funny sounds have been a common complaint lately. In some cases the sounds have been normal system sounds, in a couple of other cases the noises were indicative of worse problems.

There are four catagories of sounds that your computer may make. Knowing these sounds will help you better determine whether big problems are instore for your computer.

Whirring – A whirr can be a completelly normal sound, but it can also indicate other problems are not far way.

The most common whirring sound is caused by leaving a CD or DVD in the drive.  On older machines especially, this can cause the computer to sound like it’s taking off in flight and can even vibrate the platform that the computer is on.

Dangerous whirring can be caused by the computers fans. Often this sound varies in pitch as the computer tries  took keep at safe cool levels. If you hear this type of sound, check all your internal fans (there may be three or more). If a fan dies, it could result in a sudden quick death of your computer due to over heating.

Beeping – Beeping from inside the computers case in normal on startup and sometimes on shutdown, but if your computer doesn’t turn on, system beeps can tell a repairman what is wrong with the computer.

Grinding – A subtle grinding sound is normal. This is the sound of the computer thinking. Newer comptuers are virtually silent, but as they get older, it is common for them to make more noise as they work.

The Bad Sound – The best way to describe the bad sound is to compare it to marbles in a tin can. It sounds like a combination of clunks and rattles. The more it sounds like marbles in a tin can the worse the problem is.

This sound typically indicates pending hard drive failure. This problem is not very expensive to fix, but failure to catch it in time could mean a loss of all data on your system.

The Bad Sound gets its name from what computer guys say when they hear it, “Oh, that’t a bad sound!”

Being a roving computer guy is like no other profession. This week I have decided to list the top 10 things that make my job strange and wonderful.

10. Everyone wants to be your friend. Sometimes you are even treated like a celebrity and people are afraid to come up to you and ask you a question.

9. You get to hear dozens of apologies each week for cluttered offices. No one believes you when you tell them that clutter is the norm.

8. You meet dozens of dogs and a few cats each week. Dogs love computer guys. Many people have told me, “My dog never is this friendly with anyone!”

7. You are  asked by wives to help monitor husband’s and kids Internet activity and you are asked by husbands how to delete history and cookies.

6. You get to setup brand new computers each week and inhale that new computer smell.

5. You get to explain how problems happened with phrases like, “I told you last time that Norton Antivirus slows down your computer” or “Shady problems come from shady websites.”

4. After working on a computer problem for an hour and using every tool in your software bag to get rid of it, not to mention tweaking dozens of settings, you have to answer the question, “What did you do to fix it?”

3. You get to hear the phrase, “I am a computer illiterate,” “I know nothing about computers,” “I only know enough about computers to get into trouble,” “You know those Computers for Dummies books – those were written for me.” dozens of times each week.

2. You get to see how other people live their digital lives. No two computers or offices are the same and I get many ideas from those that I work for.

1. Job security. I try to never leave a problem partially fixed. I aim to meet every need of every client because I know that I will always be back eventually. Every computer has problems. Every computer user  needs help eventually. I spend my day helping people by fixing their computers. I am a doctor, a mechanic, a librarian and a teacher all crammed into one geek package.