"Kicking off" sound frequently from my new desktop

[Geosurface]

Hi all,

Periodically as I use my new desktop I built I'll hear this "kick off" or "cycling" or "powering down" type of sound come from inside it... to me it sounds like it's coming from the vicinity of my numerous hard drives, but I cannot be sure. It sounds a LOT like when you turn off a system entirely.

Any ideas? Is there some hard drive that's powering down when it's not accessed for a period of time?

 

[PhoenixEnigma]

Almost certainly - I get that a lot from my system, though I notice more when they spin up (they're powered down most of the time). Never really bothered to work out what's accessing them - probably Windows indexing files or something. Not anything I've lost sleep over.

 

[mikeymikec]

Try switching off the power option 'switch off hard drive after x minutes' to see whether the sound stops happening.

The problem with having multiple drives and that power option is that when you do, for example, File > Open in a word processor, Windows tries to query the drives (most of the time). It's the same reason why CDs in drives will get spun up when you haven't explicitly accessed the drive.

I'm not suggesting disabling that power option permanently, though admittedly I would find it off-putting if I hear the click of a drive starting to spin up. I'm more used to equating that sound with a drive that is about to die (if it happens during system operation rather than just at bootup or resume)

There may be a way with Win7 to produce a more verbose logging output so that you can track which drive has been powered down through the event log. Probably worth a google or two.

 

[Geosurface]

where would I find that option? thanks btw

 

[mikeymikec]

Assuming the OS is Win7:

Start > Control Panel
if you're in category view (option top-right), I only know it in non-category view so select large or small icons.
Power Options
Presumably 'Balanced' is selected. Click on 'Change plan settings' to the right of that option.
Change advanced plan settings
Double-click on 'Hard disk', again 'turn off hard disk after'. Put in a zero or select 'Never'. Apply.

 

[Geosurface]

thanks man

I was on a different plan than balanced, and it was already set to "never"

perhaps one of my drives is going bad. like my eldest one, an old 250gb

 

[mikeymikec]

I wouldn't recommend being on anything but the balanced plan. There may be a good reason for it, but I haven't heard one yet.

The main effect on your computer of not having the balanced plan (I assume yours is set to 'high performance') is that your processor isn't clocking up and down when busy or idle respectively. Having it going full whack the entire time just means you're wasting money on electricity, stressing board components more than necessary, producing extra heat and noise, for no advantages.