Hard Drive coming to the end of its teather...??
Thats all i can think of

I have a feeling it could well be the fan...well I'm hoping it's that rather than my Hard Drive.

A while ago I had a problem with my PC making a strange noise (a different noise however) and people suggested it may well be the fan.

I guess the best way to find out is to open it up and look what's happening?

I'll take a look tomorrow if it continues.

If it is the Hard Drive making this noise then what should I do?

How long does the average hard drive take to die? I've had mine for just over a year.

if it does 'grunk grunk grunk' at regular intervals, check if you are running filesharing or FTP software. My FTP rig does the same when running at max speed (about 300KB/s)

open er up bossman!

Then with it open go into the case and unplug ventilation fans one at a time while running it for a minute or two just to see if the fan is the case..

If it is, run down to the electronics store and get one to put in pronto..

Just be careful though, some of the elctronics stores don't have fans with the connector already on em. I have only had this happen once before, and it was pretty easy to wire the new one in..

My experience with these noises.....it's usually a fan. Most times it's the video card fan, else times it's a case fan. Either can be replaced. HDD failures are relatively rare.

The only way to know for sure is to open it up and take a peek. Dust buildup is the primary culprit to shortening a fan's life.

I opened it up, and the noise was coming from the Heatsink/PSU region.

I switched it on without dusting and the noise continued...I thought possibly it could be because the position it was in.

Anyway, the dusting appears to have worked! I was shocked how much was in there, there metal shield on the heatsink had hard bits of dust welded onto it! And the fan for the Video Card was covered...shocking stuff.

I'm currently considering moving my PC to a different position in my house anyway, and when I do it'll be alot easier to pull out and clean.

Thanks for the help guys - and thank God it wasn't my hard drive!


Another small question in relation to me moving my PC. The PC will be the otherside of the room from the phone socket. I have a USB ADSL modem which plugs into a phone socket. Could I get an extension cable to plug into my Modem that goes to the phone socket -around 5meters? If I could is it likely to cause any problems as this would laso be pluggin into a filter?

Thanks again!