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High pitched noise coming from the computer

S

slpnshot

Senior member
Hello AT-ers.

I've recently been hearing a high pitched whine coming from inside my case. The sound is similar to the sound you hear from a poorly made TV/Monitor.

I believe I may have isolated the source of the noise to my hard drive. When I DC my HD from my power supply the noise stops, so I'm guessing it's the cause.

Is there any advice to fixing this problem?
 
If it is actually your HDD then the answer is to replace it, could be other things including your PSU or mobo caps though.

Full system spec pls.
 
K I updated my signature. Well hopefully I won't have to replace anything atm. I was waiting around for HD prices to go down again before getting a TB drive, but if it's truly the source of this annoying noise and nothing can be done, I guess I'll have to cash out for one.
 
If you haven't backed up your data recently, now might be a really good time to do so (i.e. while the hard drive is fully functional).

To try to isolate the sound to the hard drive while the system is running, download the SeaTools for DOS bootable ISO (yeah, I know you have a WD drive, but the particular test you will be running will work on all SATA hard drives) from the following link:

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS223ALL.ISO

Burn the ISO to a CD and boot the computer with it. Select the suspect hard drive for testing, then under basic tests choose the Acoustical Test option. This test will spin down the hard drive while the system is still running. If the sound goes away while it is spun down and/or comes back when you spin it back up at the end of the test, you can at least be pretty sure it is the hard drive making the sound and not a vibrating fan or from some other source within the machine.
 
Tnx, ran the test and the noise was still there so I'm guessing it's not from the spinning. Do you think it might be caused by the connection point between the wire and drive?
 
The most likely suspect would be a fan (probably a case fan, but could also be the CPU cooler or a cooling fan on the graphics card). It could also be that you have a noisy power supply.

How dusty is the inside of your computer case? If you have a compressor, it might not be a bad idea to blow out the inside of the case, including all the fan blades (do it carefully, as it is possible to break the blades off if you set them to spinning and suddenly stop them).
 
I actually blow out the dust every month or so. I don't cotton swab the fan or anything extreme, but I've always felt that the computer is relatively clean of dust.

When I go home I'll try to see if the fans are the issue. The noise honestly seems a bit too high pitched for it to be a dusty/unbalanced fan, but who knows. Thanks again for the suggestion guys.
 
I have that problem with my asus motherboard (don't remember what the spec. of the board is, it is running an AMD phenom chip). It still persists after 3 years. I have narrowed the area where the noise eminates from. It is from one of the components soldered into the motherboard near the CPU/RAM area. I believe it is at least one of the Coils, but I couldn't pin point it. I have been too lazy to see if hot-gluing the coils would dampen this effect.

Good luck.
 
When does this noise start/end? IS it constant from the time you press the power button until the PC shuts down or is it intermittent? My mobo squeels like a very small electrocuted mouse whenever the iGPU is stressed for example.
 
@puppies

The noise start/ends pretty much on when the computer starts/ends.

I tried isolating the noise even further by plugging each component one at time to the power supply(with constant mobo too...) and the noise seems to be coming from the HD. However, I did do the spin control that Steltek was kind enough to provide and the noise didn't stop based on the hard drive idling. So I'm really thinking that it might be the power connection for whatever reason.

If it helps, my laptop tends to make a similar noise whenever I 'overcharge' it on full battery. At that point the noise stops when I unplug the laptop and run it on battery.

@cubby

Ya, I might just be annoyingly sensitive to vibration/electronic noise. It's why I'm going to be trying pretty hard to reduce noise on my future builds.

Btw, I'm looking at new HD's but there's really few reviews that base hard drives by noise level. I know that Caviar Greens are supposed to be quiet, but I don't want to get quiet at the expense of having 5400rpm platters. Anyone have recommendation for 7200 1tb that is quiet?

Thanks again guys.
 
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