Feeling pleased with myself! 2

[BionicJohn]

My PC has been been really annoying me recently as it "buzzed" a lot on boot up. But after Win7 was fully loaded, there was no apparent problem and everything was quiet, smooth and just fine.

After completely dismantling it, going mad with the Dyson cleaning out every nook and cranny, and then re-assembling, it was worse!

So after a deep breath, I did it all again, device by device, card by card. The finger of suspicion was pointing to the 2nd and 3rd HDDs, but once Win7 was loaded, they were fine. All the tests (e.g. Data Lifeguard) were "OK".

With nothing to lose, I ordered 3 new latch-type internal SATA cables. Bingo - all noises gone!

Thank you Lindy!

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[xit]

Thanks for the tip, that is probably the last place I would look, ya just never know.

 

[strongm]

>I ordered 3 new latch-type internal SATA cables

I had problems for months on my old PC due to (cheap) SATA cables

 

[BionicJohn]

The original SATA cables were the ones supplied with the mo-bo (Gigabyte P35C-DS3R), probably not the best quality and didn't seem to seat 100% in the sockets. So for a tenner all seems well. Switch on is far less stressful now.

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[hotfusion]

So for info's sake, what was actually creating the buzzing?
I was going to suggest fan bearings, but evidently that's not the case.
Maybe one of the cables was making contact with fan blades somewhere?
Glad you got it sorted though.

Regards, Andy.
My pathetic attempts at learning HTML can be laughed at here:
My home page

 

[BionicJohn]

So for info's sake, what was actually creating the buzzing?

Not sure. It was more of electrical buzzing than mechanical, and seemed to come from the area around the case's on/off/reboot switch area, which is right next to the HHDs.

It was getting me down, and only happened on boot up, but not every time. Once Win 7 was loaded, the PC is all but silent - just the usual and acceptable noise of the fans.

I'd taken the whole system apart and put it back together a component at a time. The HDD seemed to be the culprit. A minimal setup - mo-bo, vid card, CPU and cooling, RAM, power supply, keyboard and mouse only - was silent. Add the HDD,and the buzzing started. I suspected the power supply and changed part of the harness - no difference. Sometimes the BIOS failed to detect the HDD, so I changed the data leads, and then all seemed well.

I also suspected imminent HDD failure, but no so. The HDD checks out fine with Checkdisk and Data Lifeguard, and is backed up daily.

Maybe I unknowingly solved it when checking all the leads were properly connected, but all seems well now. I assembled the PC myself in 2008 (the BIOS date is 2007) so it's time get something newer and probably 64 bit - and check what's left on the credit card!

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.