Whats making the noise in my system?

[sindows]

I have an Antec Neo 550 PSU, X800XL, two hard drives(one sata, the other ide), one dvd writer, and an AMD processor cooled by the stock heatsink.

If I briefly set the X800XL's fan to zero via ati tray tools and then force the fan on the processor to stop, I can still hear something...

What can it be? I have no other case fans and the PSU is supposedly one of the quietest ones on the market yet I still hear noise. Its hard to describe but it sounds very "industrial" and thats the best way I can describe it without an actual recording. Its not the noise a fan makes and I have no idea what it sounds like.

I'm guessing its going to be the hard drives but are they really this noisy? I can hear the noise from across my room(I would say it measures 12x10ish) ...its faint but still audible.

 

[pkme2]

If you have a long stem computer mike, you can zone in to the source.

How about your hardware?

 

[pcy]

Get a piece of soft material and push it through the PSU fan guard to stop the PSU fan for a few secs.


Then you'll know if it's thd PSU fan.


Peter

 

[KaChow]

Since nobody has asked, do you have a chipset fan or is it a passive heatsink?

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: KaChow
Since nobody has asked, do you have a chipset fan or is it a passive heatsink?

that would be my guess too. i have an msi neo4-f and its northbridge fan was the smallest but also, by far, loudest fan in my system. swapping it out and adding a fan controller for my case fans helped make my system much quieter.

 

[Leros]

I agree with the above posts. In my system the two noisiest components are the gpu fan, which you have eliminated, and the chipset fan.

 

[mshan]

If it's a humming type noise, it could be vibration transmitted from the hard drive to your computer case.


Great resource:

http://www.silentpcreview.com

 

[boomerang]

You could disconnect the power to the HD and boot up to eliminate that.

Is there a CD in your optical drive?