Hard drive beeping

[Guest]

Recently My hard drive itself has started making a beeping/buzzing
noise,after some testing it seems to occur more so when running an online
game,however it is not consistent.
I have deleted alot of files to free up some space,now have over 10gigs free
space thus this is not the problem.
Im truely dumbstruck by this issue,my computer isnt doing anything new from
before when it didnt make this noise,any ideas on how to fix this would be
mighty helpful.

 

[TOAO]

Hi ... Start by openning the PC case and clean out all the dust from within
the Case , fans and power supply , Also make sure that they are all working
(spinning)

 

[Tom Willett]

http://www.sysopt.com/tutorials/article.php/3552501

| Recently My hard drive itself has started making a beeping/buzzing
| noise,after some testing it seems to occur more so when running an online
| game,however it is not consistent.
| I have deleted alot of files to free up some space,now have over 10gigs
free
| space thus this is not the problem.
| Im truely dumbstruck by this issue,my computer isnt doing anything new
from
| before when it didnt make this noise,any ideas on how to fix this would be
| mighty helpful.
|

 

[Poprivet]

Recently My hard drive itself has started making a beeping/buzzing
noise,after some testing it seems to occur more so when running an
online game,however it is not consistent.
I have deleted alot of files to free up some space,now have over
10gigs free space thus this is not the problem.
Im truely dumbstruck by this issue,my computer isnt doing anything
new from before when it didnt make this noise,any ideas on how to fix
this would be mighty helpful.

How do you know it's the hard drive and not one of the fans inside the case?

If it's the hard drive, it means you have a pending drive failure on yuor
hands; bearings or something have worn out.

But if it's a fan, which I suspect is more likely, it's a lot cheaper item
to replace than a drive, and quicker too.

HTH
Pop`

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Recently My hard drive itself has started making a beeping/buzzing
noise,after some testing it seems to occur more so when running an online
game,however it is not consistent.
I have deleted alot of files to free up some space,now have over 10gigs free
space thus this is not the problem.

What files are on the drive don't contribute to noises it makes. This
could not be the problem.

Im truely dumbstruck by this issue,my computer isnt doing anything new from
before when it didnt make this noise,any ideas on how to fix this would be
mighty helpful.

How do you know it's the hard drive making the noise, as opposed to
some other component (like a fan) in the case?

If it is indeed the drive, it's a hardware issue, not a Windows one.
The drive *may* be about to fail, so you should make extra sure you
have a good backup of anything you can't afford to lose.

 

[Anna]

How do you know it's the hard drive and not one of the fans inside the
case?

If it's the hard drive, it means you have a pending drive failure on yuor
hands; bearings or something have worn out.

But if it's a fan, which I suspect is more likely, it's a lot cheaper
item to replace than a drive, and quicker too.

HTH
Pop`

raven:
Well, if it *is* a "bad-actor" fan that would be the least of your troubles.

But we'll assume this untoward noise is, in fact, emanating from your HDD.
Understand this - strange, uncommon noise - of *any* variety - coming from a
HDD is a cause of concern. It is *not* to looked upon as some trifling "I
hope it will go away as quickly as it came" event. It must be taken
seriously

You need not be "dumbstruck" by this turn of events. I'm sure it will come
as no surprise to you that HDDs fail. It's not a question *if* they will
fail; it's a question of *when* they will fail.

So do this...

1. Back up your files immediately. At least the ones that are important to
you. If you have a disk cloning/disk imaging program then use that program
to back up your entire HDD.

2. Hopefully there will be a HDD diagnostic utility that's commonly
available at the web site of the manufacturer of your HDD. So get it and
test out your HDD.
Anna

 

[HEMI-Powered]

Poprivet offered these thoughts for the group's consideration of
the matter at hand:

How do you know it's the hard drive and not one of the fans
inside the case?

If it's the hard drive, it means you have a pending drive
failure on yuor
hands; bearings or something have worn out.

But if it's a fan, which I suspect is more likely, it's a
lot cheaper item
to replace than a drive, and quicker too.

what about the possibility that the suspect game is thrashing the
HD and/or is writing super secret stuff to non-standard areas
causing the noise? I've never heard a fan beep, but buzz they do.
again, maybe the game is stressing the CPU and it that fan that
is dying. One way to tell is to install a fan monitor or at least
go into BIOS setup and look to see what the fans are running at
and what various temps are. but, if it is an impending HD
failure, then now's the time to get another one, do an image of
the primary partition, and set up everything on the new HD. Then,
one could swap the old one in the 1st bay with the new one and
just see what happens.