Something's sneezing inside my PC

[mubs]

Yes, really. It started to happen after I made a small change a few days ago.

I have 2 HDDs (a WD 80GB JB, and a Quantum FB+LM 30GB), each the master (and sole) drive on it's own channel on a Promise Ultra 100. The opticals are on the MB IDE ports. I had the HDDs connected to the center (slave) connector of the Ultra-ATA cables for convenience reasons; after reading a thread at SR, I put the HDDs on the end at the Master drive connector. I've had this weird noise since then.

It sounds like the noise diesel engines periodically make, like a sneeze. Or imagine a hot griddle; wet you fingres under a running tap and then flick the water from your fingers on to the griddle. What do you hear? A big hiss, that slowly dies down as the water evaporates. The pitch of the sound goes down in the process. That's exactly the sound I'm hearing. And no, my rig isn't water cooled!

The noise doesn't happen with any consistency with respect to time; I may not hear it for a whole 10 minutes, or I'll hear two within one minute. I've got the side panel off and tried to listen to isolate it, but I can't tell. I've run the respective diags on both the HDDs and they passed with flying colors. At this time, I'm not able to troubleshoot by disconnecting things one at a time; I've got things running that can't be shut down.

MB is a Tiger 100, running two FCPGA P-3-800s in slotkets. The case has 3 fans in it, one of them in front of the HDDs in the drive cage. It's not the CPU fans or the other two fans; I've checked with a flashlight. I can't check the HDD fan because I can't see it till I remove the HDD cage.

Any ideas? :-?

 

[Fushigi]

Hmm. Is system performance impacted when the noise occurs?

Possibilities that come to mind:

- Power overload/underload to a device causing some sort of power cycle/reset to occur. HDs the most likely; opticals possible; fans unlikely but still worth checking (including the GPU fan if any).
- Something stuck in an optical drive.
- Leaking capacitor spilling it's guts onto some other component. From the PSU, mobo, or any card.
- You're imagining it and desperately need a vacation. :lol:

- Fushigi

 

[blakerwry]

Are you sure it's not a wire or anything getting in the way of a fan? That would be my 1st guess since it's an easy and common thing to happen....


Did you try reverting to the original setup to see if the noise persists?



sounds odd.. I've never heard of a noise like that from a computer... unless maybe it was preceded by a loud pop and followed by a trail of smoke.

 

[mubs]

Thanks for responding!

John:

The duration of the noise ranges from 0.5 secs to a max of 1.5 secs, and I haven't noticed any drag on performance.

Nothin's changed, power requirement wise; of course, a cap could have died in the power supply, causing this problem. I don't hear any of the drives (mag/optical) spin down then up again.

Opticals are clean & empty; they are in the bays at the top of the case, and the noise is coming from somewhere in the bottom. It's an Antec SX1030 that I took a Dremel to; it's a great case.

Leaking cap: unless it's got a bad case of the flu, I didn't think a cap could leak that much! There are no signs of leakage anywhere.

No I'm not imagining it, and no I don't need a vacation, I need work. I've been on involuntary vacation for longer than I care to remember!

Blake:

My initial suspicion was a wire scraping on a fan blade, but the're all clear; I've spent a bit of time with ties and those sticky things you put wire ties through, to keep my case clean.

I havn't tried putting the ATA cables back the way they were; that'll need a power off which I can't do just yet (maybe this weekend).

Methinks the fan in front of the HDDs (that I can't see) is dying and stops and then restarts on it's own. It's a 92mm Panaflo L1A that's been in use about 15 months....

 

[blakerwry]

is it possible that a power connector is loose? and something (like that HDD fan) is getting turned off and on?

 

[mubs]

I'll check, Blake. But normally, a fan powering off and on should just cause a change in the humming noise. The sounds I hear tell me something is wrong--maybe a bearing is sticking or giving out.

 

[blakerwry]

hopefully that's a bearing to a $6 fan....


I hate random computer noises BTW.... In my mind computers should emit no noise or a constant quiet hum... Well.. actually I like a little seek noise now and then so I know something is happening when I click on stuff.

 

[jtr1962]

Try turning off your speakers and see if you still get the noise. I recently had a periodic high-pitched whine similar to what comes from a television sawtooth wave generator coil. It turned out to be coming from my speakers intermittantly whenever I was running Internet Explorer. I'm not even going to try to find the underlying reason for it(probably another bug in IE). I just turn off my speakers when it starts to annoy me.

 

[blakerwry]

didn't you check IE's hardware compatibility list before buying those speakers?

lol j/k.... but the thought is creeping my out.