Grinding noises usually come from a failing hard drive. The failure rate has increased regardless of brand in the past several years.

Backup the data and get a replacement if it is still under the warranty.

John

And do not procrastinate.
JJK

And that means DO IT NOW...... ;)

Something simple to try: grab the top part of your computer case and slightly push the top of it to the left and then to the right. If you hear the grinding noise increase or decrease then it is a fan hitting its casing (which happened on my system). Whenver you hear this noise, look to seee if you can pinpoint where it is coming from. If it is coming from an area that is not near your hard drives, then it may be a fan. If not, then it may very well be a hard drive.

j razz

From lots of experience I can tell you that grinding noises are seldom from the hard drive. However, I agree with everyone that you should do a full backup TODAY, just in case the drive IS failing.

Much more likely (95% of the time in my experience) is failure of one of the cooling fans. If you open your computer and then power it up, you can almost always pinpoint the failing object simply by putting your ear near each device. Very low-tech, but very effective. I have fifteen computers, and at least four of them currently have "gimpy" fans. Several of these are exhaust fans, and one is a CPU cooling fan on the video card. If you can easily reach the fan, you can simply put your finger over the spinning hub to stop the fan. Don't stop it for more than half a second so you don't burn out the motor. You will instantly know if the fan is the problem (also, don't do this with the fan in the power supply or any fan that isn't "out in the open.")

If you are really handy, you can usually "cure" the fan. You remove the fan, then pry off the label covering the hub. Then, use non-petroleum grease to lubricate the core. What usually happens is that the bearing (actually it's just a hole) gets dry and the surface begins to chatter. You need to use the smallest amount of grease possible -- the amount that fits on the end of a resistor lead is all I use. After I've worked it into the hub, I remove the excess with a chamois swab or lintless Q-tip. I then replace the label or, if the label is damaged, put a piece of tape over the hub to keep the lubrication from coming out.

In the last twenty-five years, I have only lost about three hard drives, and two of them did indeed make bad sounds before they failed, so it DOES happen, and you need to immediately backup. However, the chances are 20:1 that it is a fan, so hopefully it will be an easy fix. If you live near Frys, you can easily get a replacement fan if you don't want to mess with the lubrication.

My personal computer had serious noise coming from a graphics card fan. It would eventually go away after a few minutes, or if I just immediately rebooted after the first boot. Some graphics cards can get super hot, super quick.

I assemble and disassemble systems pretty frequently in the course of work and oft-times such sounds come fan brushing against a wire.

Obviously, if it's a failing hard drive you need to back it up and replace it right away. Ghost or something similar would work. In fact, such a program should be able to copy your system to the replacement drive, so maybe you buy two drives, one replacement and one backup that you just keep on the shelf.

I use a program called Casper XP, which is similar to Ghost. What I find with my backup copies is that *almost* everything works when I boot from the copy, but Photoshop needs to be reactivated and Vegas always needs a reinstall, which is easy. So the process isn't flawless but it's light years better than completely rebuilding a system from scratch.

If you have a system from a company like HP, Dell, Gateway, etc the process is a little more complex because you should restore the system from their install disks, which you probably needed to create from the PC. If you're in this position and haven't created the recovery disks, be sure to do it. You could still try the Norton Ghost method but on these machines this might not restore the recovery partition or the copy of the BIOS DMI info that these systems usually copy to the hard disk.

A trick my father taught me about tracking down noises in engines would work just as well here. First, open the computer's case. Get a long solid object and place one end against the interior area you think is the culprit. Put your ear to the other end. This transmits the sound more clearly so if your computer is generally noisy this helps you isolate spots. Kind of a poor man's stethoscope. For an engine we'd use a long screwdriver but for a computer you could try something less conductive like a wooden kitchen spoon.

Just as with engines, you don't want to stick the object into a fan.

Rob Mack

One other possibility is that your "System Idle Process" is going full bore on you. This creates an annoying sound on the computer that might be the grinding you are describing.

The next time you hear the noise, hit ctrl+alt+del and see if the System Idle Process is chunking away. If so, then don't panic. These are processes that the OS runs when it thinks your computer is not being used. Unfortunately, sometimes it runs while you ARE doing something, and it really sounds like your drive is boring a hole to China!

Is it normal for the hard drive to grind loud when you are saving big files? I did a 4GB render and the hard drive was louder then I've ever heard it before. Is this normal and are people here referring to the grinding sound being an omen of hard drive failure only if it happens in idle stage?

Sami

When I first started building computers for customers in the mid 90's, I had a number of noisy "grinding" noises that all were the fans. At that time most all fans were in the power supply. So, under warranty I put in new power supplies.

To my chagrin, I read in a tech bulletin that the best way to solve that noise was a can of air. The noise was the result of dust/dirt on the fan blades, I read, causing the fan blades to run unevenly and warble, causing the noise.

To this day, 95% or more of the noises I encounter is from dust on fan blades. The other few percent is fan bearings drying out and going bad and in 2 cases out of probably 1,000, hard drives going bad. The bad hard drives were 6-8 years ago.

Try a can of air. First without the fan running, and then turn it on and do it again. Also, fans don't spin that fast or with high enough torgue but what you can momentarily stop them with a pencil eraser or other rubbery probe. A quick stop for 1 or 2 seconds will clearly identify the sound. Insert the stopping device slowly and gently but hold it firmly. Then withdraw quickly.

A CPU fan that is going bad can be dangerous to your CPU. If you suddenly have a computer going wacko soon after startup when using an application, look at the CPU fan quickly. It may me dead or dying running slowly. Oops. Change it quickly, and don't go for the cheapest fan either.

David
www.EventVideoTeam.com
www.CFAssociates.com

Without hearing the actual noise, it's hard to say, but the last post is probably the first thing to try.

Sooner or later fans will start making some kind of noise, and it could be any of them, power supply fan, cpu fan, graphics card fan, or any of the case fans ( depending on your case, you could have anywhere between 3 and 10 fans in there ).

It's a good idea to open and clean you pc every few months.

Then it could be a hard drive.

"System Idle Process" is going full bore on you???

That's a dummy process. Ignore it. It should be at 100% when you're doing nothing, and less when you're doing something. If you look at the graph in taskman you'll see no CPU activity when System Idle Process is at 100%

Rob Mack

Noisier when writing a 4 GB file...
Well, that could just be the sound of a heavily fragmented drive and it's heads could be moving all over the place to find spots to write the file.

Rob Mack

Thanks for the advice everybody - will start by doing check for dust - I have a big Maine Coon cat who likes to hang out with me in the studio and the computer case just might be filled with her fur since it seems to be attracted to everything. if you have a furry feline friend, you'll know exactly what I mean.
lili

Well, that could just be the sound of a heavily fragmented drive and it's heads could be moving all over the place to find spots to write the file.

Ooooh noooo, modern operating systems/hard disks/other parts of your computer don't have this problem any more!

Fragmentation does not exist and defrag programs are obsolete!

Or so we can learn from some experts :O).

Short answer: defragmentation is a real issue for large files. It won't cost you a penny to use the Windows built-in manual defragger that you can access from drive properties.

"That's a dummy process. Ignore it. It should be at 100% when you're doing nothing, and less when you're doing something. If you look at the graph in taskman you'll see no CPU activity when System Idle Process is at 100%"


There's a BIG difference in this world between what SHOULD hapen and what DOES happen. I'm simply reporting an experience that is at odds with your conclusion.

Lili

You made me laugh. Years ago a lady who lived in a log cabin, used a wood stove for heat, and had three cats came to me with a computer to repair. It was a horizontal desktop unit and not a tower.

As I opened the case I was startled by what I saw. The entire insides were covered by a thin grey coat that looked like a wool blanket. It was perfectly smooth and unbroken, form fitted to the shape of all the components. I was able to lift it out in large chunks, It was all dust and cat fir.

I should have taken a series of pictures. However, the lady was there with me waiting to take her computer home.

To top it off...... the computer was just over 6 months old! i have not seen anything like it since. Sure, globs of dust/hair and lots of it, but never a blanket.

My best advice to anyone, if they can, keep the computer off the floor. I can't follow my own advice. My server and three workstation towers sit side by side under my extended desk.

David
www.EventVideoTeam.com
www.CFAssociates.com

I might add that if you're going to go shooting compressed air blasts inside your dusty computer, you will not believe how much dust you can generate. I'd suggest running your vacuum cleaner suction nozzle near the PC so that you can isolate the spread of the dust.

I've never experienced "grinding" noises from a hard drive. To me it sounds like a rapid-fire succession of faint clicks. But I have heard growling and grinding-like noises from fans.

Cheap fans have the afore-mentioned sleeve bearings and are likely to start making noise after a few years. For a few bucks more you can buy fans with ball bearings, which will last much longer.

Finally, if you're at all nerdy, install the freeware "MotherboardMonitor," which is a tinkerer's paradise of settings and graphs. My PC is set up so that if the CPU fan speed drops to maybe 75% of normal then an alarm goes off. I also have the CPU temperature monitored so that if it goes too high the alarm goes off also. You can even configure MBM so that if something like this happens it will initiate the shutdown process.

It's not my conclusion.

Here's a fair explanation:
http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?t=783

Rob

We have a Maine Coone in our office. They produce a lot of hair and dander so you definitely need to clean frequently.

Nicest cat I've ever met but the first one I've ever been allergic to.

Rob

Years ago when I was teaching a course in automotive repair we had a tape of car noises that was recorded by an automotive engineer to describe common sounds. Sounds described as a "growling noise" or a "grinding noise" or a "squealing noise" or a "knocking noise" were all there for the customer to listen to in order to pick out the sound they were "trying" to describe. It was a priceless tape and just goes to show that one person's "grind" is another person's "click".

John

My experience:

1 - Beeps - motherboard telling you something is wrong
2 - Loud Squealing - hard drive bearing going out
3 - Soft Squealing - case/cpu fan failing or clogged with Maine xxx hair
4 - Clicking - hard drive failing

5 - Grinding - your swap file is swapping data constantly.
Causes:
- RAM failed and your swap file is accessed all the time
- A priority program has consumed all of your RAM leaving none for your active programs/tasks (malware/virus?)

Left unchecked, the constant grinding will eventually result in #2 and #4 above.

When you hear this "grinding" is the HDD activity light on - flashing constantly? You may just be describing "thrashing" a condition where the disk is constantly being read and written to because of a memory management issue.