Need Help On New PC Problem

[hl0m4n]

ok so i got my new ram sticks today from corsair and everything is great. upgraded from 1-2gb and all is well. now i start WOW and about 5 minutes in there is a very loud grinding noise that literaly goes vrOOOOM and the noise shuts off. 2-3 minutes later it makes the sound again and again.

i exit out of wow and no more sound, i can run internet, photoshop, etc problem free but when i start a game like WOW and i even tested it on CS it makes this sound 5 minutes in.

i checked the fans by putting my finger in them and stopping each one when i hear the noise and the fans is not the problem. i put my ear next to the cd rom drives and it might be there or even from the harddrive, i am not sure on the source of the sound.

any ideas guys on this one?

[UltimateBMW]

I'm about 80% positive this is the hard drive. There are only a handful of items in a computer that can even make loud noises, and most of the time it is the hard drive that is guilty. But, before we take any more action to troubleshoot it stop testing. You need to back-up anything you don't want to loose immediately. Once you have all your important files safe, then I would start testing again.

Since you don't need a CD to run WoW there is very little reason to suspect the CD-rom of causing this noise just randomly without even running a disk inside.

How old is your hard drive?

[hl0m4n]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

I'm about 80% positive this is the hard drive. There are only a handful of items in a computer that can even make loud noises, and most of the time it is the hard drive that is guilty. But, before we take any more action to troubleshoot it stop testing. You need to back-up anything you don't want to loose immediately. Once you have all your important files safe, then I would start testing again.

Since you don't need a CD to run WoW there is very little reason to suspect the CD-rom of causing this noise just randomly without even running a disk inside.

How old is your hard drive?

totally agree man. not many things inside make noises and it is def not the fans. there are no CD in the cd drives and for them to make a sound out of random is bogus.

the hard drive is a 250gb western digital which i had from the start. believe it or not every time i ordered it from newegg i had 7 doa before finally on the 8th i got a working one. i had it in there for the life of the pc which is 2-4 years (honestly forgot when i built it ).

don't think it is the mobo too cause i would have more serious problems. i even tried changing the sata port and same thing. i can run basic tasks and the pc is fine with no noises but start up a game and vroom sound.

at least i got one problem fixed which was the beeping caused by the ram sticks. got a 2gb replacement too from corsair.

thanks for the help man.

[UltimateBMW]

Haha, well at least your getting all this stuff worked out at nearly the same time. So hopefully you end up computer problem free for a few years when done.

Here's hoping.

Post up if you have any new developments or issues.

[hl0m4n]

thanks man. but before i get a new hard drive, can you think of it being anything else? i took a long shot and checked the bios settings and everything is default on that like it always has.

maybe i will try maxtor>western digital?

[UltimateBMW]

If you want to trouble shoot it. Do you have an extra harddrive around anywhere? Maybe ask a friend if they can take theirs out and plug it in really quick. If you can run apps off the new one without issue, that solves your problem. Adversely, you could also try plugging your HDD into another computer and seeing how it performs. This would tell you 100% if its the HDD or not.

Not sure I can really tell you much else without actually hearing the sound itself.

As for brand... I've been using WD for.. well ever. I never really had much issue with them. But then again I don't buy a whole lot of hard drives. I have around 3 or 4 right now. 200gb, 350gb, 750gb, and a 60gb. The 200 and 350 are internal drives but I put them into an external shell. I don't run them unless I need information off them. They run fine though, I just have them in the portable shell for the obvious portability.

[hl0m4n]

but isn't it weird that the sound only comes when i play games? normal apps everything is fine it is just gaming i get this sound now. here is a vid. you can here a vroOOOm sound and then turning off. when i play a game it keeps making this sound on and off.

[UltimateBMW]

It seems to be is that it is reading data from your wow folders. When you run lesser applications, they usually don't constantly read data for that long. It will read data, then store it into ram. The game would be a different scenario since it may be pulling continuously new data. I will say though, it wasnt the sound I was expecting to hear. I was expecting something much louder, and shorter in length. That is pretty drawn out. However, unfortunately the case above seems to be the problem your having.

I use to have a computer that somehow one of the fans on the back of the case got loose or something. Whenever that fan turned on I had a noise similar to what you are hearing, but it was constant and never died out or stopped. Took me forever to figure out that it was because the mounting bracket on the fan was just a smudge not snug enough and was making it rattle against the chassis. I fixed it by wedging some sort of plastic rubbery material in on one of the contact points. Just for the sake of doing it, you might want to try loading up WoW with the cover off and just pay attention to the noise and fan rotation speed. See if you can pick up on any trends. If this is a bust, it's definitely going to be the HDD then.

I'll say though, before you try anything else. Make sure you back up all your files. Actually, just doing this might even solve your mystery. If you take a file of beefy size and try to move it so that the HDD has to read/write then it should make this noise again. If it does, you have your answer. If it does not however, then look at your CPU heatsink fan, or maybe your GPU fan if you have one. Also make sure that there aren't any loose cords in the case that are near any fans. The blades could maybe be hitting on a dangling cord and that could be causing a similar sound. Although, I'll admit this is a long shot. It definitely sounds like a hard drive spinning with something in contact with it.

[its ray den]

could it be the fan on the PSU?

[UncleWede]

When you say you stick your fingers in teh fan blades, just the external case fans? That sounds like it's either the fan on the CPU or on the graphics card, which would make sense with WoW.

AFTER you back up data, try doing a disk defrag. That will exercise the drive and make the noise if it's really the HD failing. If not, it wouldn't exercise the CPU or graphics card much.

[hl0m4n]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

When you say you stick your fingers in teh fan blades, just the external case fans? That sounds like it's either the fan on the CPU or on the graphics card, which would make sense with WoW.

AFTER you back up data, try doing a disk defrag. That will exercise the drive and make the noise if it's really the HD failing. If not, it wouldn't exercise the CPU or graphics card much.

i opened up the case and each time the sound came on i stopped a different fan with my finger while the pc was running wow. the only fan i can't stop is the video card.

i will try this fan thing again just to make sure later tonight. and how do i start the disk defrag and what does it do exactly? so during the disk defrag if the the comp makes the noise it is def a bad HD?

[UltimateBMW]

Disk defragmenting is basically consolidating fragments of files on your hard drive and grouping them together.

The easiest way, off the top of my head, to explain it is, your hard drive has clusters that store information. Lets say for this example your HDD has 10 clusters that you can use to put information in. So you decide to install WoW. Wow takes up a decent amount of HDD space, so lets say it takes up 3 clusters. So now clustered 1, 2, and 3 have data (wow code) written to them. Now you want to install Ventrilo, so you install it and it gets written to cluster 4, the next available consecutive cluster. Now you want to install a 3rd program 'X' and it takes up 2 clusters. It is written to clusters 4 and 6. So the overview of your HDD storage is that clusters 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 are full of data out of the 10 possible. Now, for whatever reason you want to uninstall ventrilo. This will free up the data in cluster 4. And then you install a HUGE program, 'Zed'. Program 'Zed' will take up 4 clusters, started at 4, then 7, 8, and 9. Your cluster break down is as follows.

1. wow
2. wow
3. wow
4. Zed
5. X
6. X
7. Zed
8. Zed
9. Zed
10. open

What defraging does is that it will group your files together, and reorganize your files so that they can be more easily read. It will also fill up any gaps left. So if you had ran a Defrag after you uninstalled Ventrilo, then you would of bumped program 'X' up to cluster 4, and 5. Then when you installed 'Zed' it would of installed to clusters 6,7,8, and 9. Thus, keeping it all together and much more direct for the HDD to read. If you defrag after you install 'Zed' it will rearrange where the files are installed to, and then put group them together as whole programs. This is a rough understanding of how it works. Come to think of it, the game of Tetris would of also made a great example. Basically you don't want open spaces in your HDD and fragmented files. It boggles down your HDD when it attempts to search for those specific files.

Running a defrag would be a good way to test the HDD in an isolated environment where the GPU won't activate, however if you do have a problem or crash while defragging it could potentially cause more problems.

[UltimateBMW]

A colleague at work just suggested that it may be the ball bearings in the harddrive getting worn out. Since they are manufactured at a very precise size to avoid rattling or vibrations while spinning at the max RPM.

Also, your copy of Windows should of come with a Defragmenting tool. Look under accessories and system tools. You can also download 3rd party defragmenting tools that claim to be faster or better than the default windows tool. But I don't have a whole lot of experience with any 3rd party defragmenter in particular.

On average though, it is considered good practice to defrag your HDD every month. At worst, you should do it once a year. And now days, alot of copes of windows will actually set up an Auto defragment session to run at night. You set the time and day you want it to run and it will take care of the rest, similar to how a virus scanner will allow you to set a auto-scan.

[hl0m4n]

great explanation and yes i found it in the accessories. i opened the case ran wow and everytime the sound came i stopped a fan with my finger. all the fans check out besides the gpu. when i put my ear next to the gpu area the sound is def from there so it has to be the gpu right?

but what could make the gpu fan go insane? i have been playing wow on this pc for years and never had this problem. the only time i took it out was when i had to install the new ram sticks.

so i filed a rma request with ati, hopefully my warranty is still active lol we'll have to see but is it true that PCI-E 2.0 cards are only compatible with the older PCI-E 1.1 spec and NOT 1.0? is there a way to see which slot i have from my computer?

[UltimateBMW]

I'm glad to hear that it wasn't the HDD. Odd that the graphics card fan just decided to ware out. Did you try to check and see if there was any debris in the fan area? Maybe the blades are rubbing on something as they rotate.

[hl0m4n]

yay it was indeed the video card. i got pny 8800gt $110 and i couldn't be happier. just one problem though. this is my brother's comp i fixed so i ran WOW and CS and they both ran perfectly. he also plays maple story (which i think is gay ) and when it loads the screen goes black and i get this box saying:

Sync. Out Of Range
98.1 kHz 150Hz NP

i hope this isn't a big problem cause the other games ran fine...
the 98.1 kHz would bounce from 98.1 to 98.2 and back to 98.1, etc.

[hl0m4n]

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/in...p?topic=4523.0
http://www.sharpened.net/helpcenter/answer.php?15

i looked up in the nvidia control settings the the refresh rate is on the lowest one and the resolution is the same from when i was using the x850 before it 1024x.

when i run games like WOW and CS no problems but when my bro runs maple story and it goes into the game i get the sync message...

also the 8800gt is a very LONG card. caught me off guard. had to move hd to a lower slot to make the extra length and the power needed isn't that bad. so far im happy but will be fully satisified if i can just fix this problem.

[hl0m4n]

yes all my problems are solved and thanks to you guys the PC is running full 100% with a new 8800gt which is amazing for the price i must say.

found out maple story has its own screen setup tool so just click that and it auto adjusts itself.

[UltimateBMW]

Glad to hear everything worked out well.