Your handy field guide to noises your computer makes
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!”