Hi everyone!

How has everyone been? I've been doing okay - having a darn prob w/my computer. At least I think it's a problem.

My computer is about 1 1/2 yrs old - yes, ancient in tech terms.

My computer has been running oh so smoothly until about a week ago. About a week ago my pc tower thingie started making that slow whirring noise, like it was trying to start up. Then a cooling fan thingie kicked on. Like right now it just did that twice in a row!

I haven't changed anything on my computer and I'm not running anything new or different. Right now I just have 2 things running.

Another thing I noticed is that when that slow whirring starts, my browser kinda hangs up a bit.

Is this just normal? Could something be wrong? Is there a program I can run to check stuff?

It's just that the cooling fan thing is so so so loud and I just thought it was kinda odd that it all of a sudden started coming on when I didn't change anything.

Thanks so much for any help!

Hope you all had a great weekend!!!

There are a few possibilities:

1. Bad RAM
2. Bad hard drive
3. Bad CPU

Any one of those things could be the culprit.

Well oh snap-a-dilly!

Can any of those 3 things just go "bad"?

Is there a way I can check each?

Everything seems to run okay on my computer, just maybe a tiny tiny tad slower, but really only when the whirring starts and only for a few secs.

So the only reason a cooling fan would come on is because of one or a combo of those 3 reasons? What about if a computer is just old? My parents have a pc that's like....wow....7 yrs old. That thing can make some funky noises

I do notice that the whirring kinda kicks in when I've got lots of tabs open in FireFox. By a lot I mean maybe 8 or more. Right now I've got 6 open and all is well. But if I start to open more, the whirring starts and then that fan might kick on.

But until a week ago this wasn't a prob.

Another thing I noticed....during one of the whirring sessions - a little icon thingie popped up on my taskbar warning me of some kind of ...well crapola, can't remember...something about high usage or something. I just clicked the x on it. Only saw it once..maybe twice.

I think there are a few software applications out there that can run some tests, but not sure how reliable they are.


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en& … l=&oq=

The first one looks promising.

You can also run Windows diagnostics:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

Amelia, it's your old buddy under a different moniker ... Our paths have crossed several times in the past.

Since you have been inside your machine before, when you were dealing with the firewire card, open it up again! This time, take a look at the CPU fan and the cooling fins of the heatsink underneath it. If your CPU fan seems to be cycling more frequently than usual, it might be that you need to do a little early 'spring cleaning'.

At least it's an easy thing to check.

Scott, that first link took me to a Google search and the first one was flagged red by Norton. Which one did you mean?

There are only a few moving parts on a computer so it should be easy (this isn't the same as cheap) to troubleshoot.

A cooling fan shouldn't give you any performance issues. Drives also have moving parts so if your computer has a drive access indicator light you could monitor high drive access periods and see if there is any correlation with the noise. If you feel up to it open the case (with the machine off), and very gently blow the dust, etc. off of the internal hardware that has accumulated paying special attention to any fans (if you only do a partial job of cleaning the fan blades balance could get off and this will cause premature failure). You should be able to buy some compressed air in an aresol just for this purpose at your local office supply store (be sure to keep the port/nozzle far enough away from components or you'll get condensation and electricity and water don't play nice together).

Whatever, is causing the abnormal sound, it should definitely be identified and remedied quickly. My experience is these things don't just go away. So backup often, and get it fixed.

What was your other username?

And yeah, I guess I can open my pc tower thing and take a looksie. Not sure what I'm looking for though lol! But I've got a can of compressed air!

Levi - thanks for the info!