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Clicking noise

ASRomatifoso

Thinker
A
Joined
Oct 24, 2003
Messages
186
So my PC is on the fritz. Started making an intermittent clicking noise yesterday, when it does this the machine locks up for a second, then keeps working, however, the mouse does not. I popped the top, ensured memory, graphics card, etc. were all secure in their slots, vacuumed it, and booted it up without the case on, so I could see the fans (first thought was a fan problem). Fans looked fine, in fact, everything looked fine. Put it back together, rebooted, same problem.

I am taking it to the shop to get looked at this weekend but any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
ASRomatifoso said:
So my PC is on the fritz. Started making an intermittent clicking noise yesterday, when it does this the machine locks up for a second, then keeps working, however, the mouse does not. I popped the top, ensured memory, graphics card, etc. were all secure in their slots, vacuumed it, and booted it up without the case on, so I could see the fans (first thought was a fan problem). Fans looked fine, in fact, everything looked fine. Put it back together, rebooted, same problem.

I am taking it to the shop to get looked at this weekend but any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

The fans are ok? Smells like the hard drive. You may have a dying HD on your hands; you might want to backup soon, while you can still access it.
 
Cleon is right.

The hard drive clicking can be a first sign of failure, Backup your data.

What kind of drive is it? a 60 Gig IBM?
 
Can you pinpoint *where* the clicking is comming from? It's OK to have to computer open when it's running. No high voltages except inside the power supply, that's in its own box, and none of the fans have enough torque to hurt you, either.

Definitely back up your data, anyway. Most people neglect to do so, and then they cry me a river when all their stuff is gone.

Of course, the time to have done a backup is BEFORE the magic smoke escapes.
 
There's only two moving parts in your average PC - the hard drive and fans. Chances are, it's your hard drive. Clicking sounds *can* be perfectly "normal" if your data is badly fragmented. But with the lockups you are experiencing, it's probably something really bad.

Here's the good news: new hard drives are pretty cheap right now. You should be able to get a good deal on it.

Here's the bad news: there's a slight chance it's not your hard drive. Anything that would cause your hard drive to seek distant sectors rapidly *could* make quite a racket. Your could have some kind of a failure in your IDE chain (if there's another drive hooked up to the clicky one, seperate them to help isolate the problem). Or it could, in theory, even be software. Those are extreme longshots.

Backup your *data*. Now's a perfect time for you to reinstall all your applications and get your system cleaned up as you're installing the new hard drive.
 
There could be damaged sectors on the hard drive, causing it to retry its data seeks repeatedly if it's having trouble reading sectors, which can account for those intermittent stoppages. Have you done a surface scan?

The mouse symptom is difficult to explain, though unless the stoppages are interfering with the port somehow. On my previous home computer, I was rarely able to utilize to CTRL-ALT-DEL because almost any kind of lockup would completely disable the keyboard forcing me to resort to the power switch.

But like the others said, a clicking sound accompanied by process stoppages usually points to the hard drive.
 
Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate it! I am taking it to the shop on Saturday and I will let you guys know if it is, in fact, a hard drive problem. That does seem the most likely candidate. Hopefully, it is only that and not a mobo problem or something. Thanks, again.
 
I would also do a virus scan & a spyware check. It may not be a hardware problem.


A slow CPU fan, or an intermittant one, will give those same errors. I'd replace that anyway; you can get them for about $12.
 
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