Like your car, your computer makes a variety of sounds that indicate both normal operation and impending failure. Knowing the difference can help you make smart decisions about when to call a professional, and can even make diagnosis go faster.
Good Sound: Whirring Periodocally
When your hard drive is working, it will make a low whirring noise. Hard drives consist of one or more round platters that spin and a reader arm that moves across the surface of the disks. The motion of the disks will make some noise at start up and whenever you’re opening a large file or program.
Bad Sound: Ticking
While “ticking time bomb” might sound cliche, that’s exactly what a ticking computer is. Ticking is often caused by a misaligned reader arm or hard disk platter. Even a slight problem with either can cause the arm to come into contact with the delicate surface as it turns, causing permanent damage and eventual data loss.
Good Sound: Humming
The single greatest threat to your computer is heat. That’s why laptops and desktops employ a number of fans to draw heat away from delicate components. All these fans should make a soft humming sound for the entire time your computer is on. A suspicious silence could mean that the fans are not working and your system is at risk.
Bad Sound: Rattling or Grinding
Most hardware failure happens silently, but luckily fans are not so quiet on their way out. A rattling, grinding, or even a ticking sound could indicate a fan on it’s last legs. Replacing fans before they fail can save your expensive hardware from heat damage, so it’s important to get these sounds checked out right away. Sometimes a rattle or a tick can be caused by a foreign object getting caught in a fan, making it a very easy fix.
Good Sound: One Beep
New bios standards require that all systems issue a single “all clear” beep before starting the operating system. While this standard does not go into effect for a while, some systems have done this as a default since the mid 90’s. If your computer has always made a single beep at start up, it’s probably an “all clear” beep and nothing to worry about. If your system has never done this, that’s fine too.
Bad Sound: Beep Codes
If your machine is making multiple beep sound at start up, that’s another matter entirely. Beep codes are your computers only way to notify you of hardware failure if the operating system will not boot, and as a result manufacturers have developed complicated systems of beeps and lights to describe different problems. Multiple beeps, beeps with different lengths, and beeps with different tones all mean that your computer is trying to warn you about something. Even if you computer still seems to be working fine, beep codes need to be taken seriously. Your Computer Geeks tech can interpret what your computer has to say, which can mean the difference between a quick fix and total system failure.