Hard drive noise or is it the fan? 2

[papa12]

WinXP Home. 1.7ghz 512 RAM 40GB HD DELL

Now....

I'm hearing a "revving up" sound frequently. It sounds like it's from the HD. It started recently. My system is on about 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Is my hard drive about to kick the bucket? Perish the thought.

If it is the HD, what will be the most painless way to transfer all my files/settings to a new HD?

Yes, I backup weeekly using Dantz's Retrospect Backup.

--Pappy

 

[Daire]

sounds like its just the HDD "waking up", if the PC is on for that length of time the power saving features will spin down the hard disk after a set period of time to save power consumption. the time period is usually from 20 mins to 1 hour and can be set by the user.
If you notice the revving up occuring after a period of unuse and just after you move the mouse of press a key then that is probably what is happening

ds

 

[edfair]

If this started recently I would suggest a fan speed control kicking up airflow. The power issues shouldn't have changed suddenly if the usage hasn't changed.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[papa12]

Thanks for the comments.

The revving is not related to the power saving feature as I have that disabled.

The HDD runs with the normal "whirr", but occasionally it's like hitting the gas pedal on your car real fast and then letting go of it. Not all the time, but occasionally.

I'm a little confused on the fan speed control issue.

--Pappy

 

[edfair]

Some boards have thermostatic speed contol, some have some other methods of varying the fan voltage to change the airflow volume to increase cooling if needed.

If it truly is the HD motor, you can be having an intermittent failure in the speed control. And probably will get worse. Might I suggest a visit to the manufacturer's sit for a diagnostic disk to see if anything shows up. And get prepared for failure. Or pre-emptily get it out.

Ghost is one way of transferring. There are others.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[Grenage]

Worth opening up the case and trying to locate the sound just in case, you can always unplug fans to rule them out providing they are non-essential (CPU/GFX).

As edfair said, ghost is the easiest and cleanest way of getting a total working copy of your drive onto another drive. Should you not wish to keep the OS etc you could just add another drive as a slave and copy the files across in Windows.

 

[Daire]

i presume you have localised the noise as comming from the hard disk but my pc produces a revving-up sound from time to time if there is a cd in the drive that spins up

obvious i know but!!!

 

[paparazi]

I think you need to carry out a bit of detective work, remove the side, try and locate the area of the noise, fans can be temperarily slowed down by carefully applying pressure to the centre of the impeller.
Pinpoint that noise and post back with your findings.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[rclarke250]

Also look to see if the drive you have is a seagate 40gb drive, I know a company that has had a 10 percent drive failure on these drives in there dells. the machines are less then 2 years old.Backup your critical data just in case it happens to go south.

Rich

I shall use google before asking stupid questions!