hard drive?

[rossid]

For some time our tower has been making a LOT of noise. Seems like it is the hard drive in action. It is a five year old Gateway. Will it die soon? What options to we have?

[The Unknown Gomer]

Maybe check your cooling fan? Our film capture PC here at the office is pretty old, and does that a LOT, makes this awful irritating whirring buzzing noise when you first boot it up that lasts the whole entire time it's booting and then some. I recorded the sound on my PDA for my boss, since naturally it never did it when he was here, usually when it was just me in the office, and when I played it back for him, he said it sounded like the fan.

Maybe take the back off your PC when you boot it up some time and see if you can't isolate where the noise is coming from. It could just be a matter of replacing the fan.

[middletree]

For the first time ever, I agree with UG ;)

It could be the fan. Those things can be noisy. The cool thing is that they can be much cheaper to replace than HDs. If you buy one, don't get the cheapest. They are noisy by default. But you can get a quiet one in the $30 range.

[mat1583]

It's a 5 year old computer. Unless you're running it as a server, you should just buy a whole new computer instead of a $30 fan.























...of course I'm just kidding, sort of. Fans are easy to replace and pretty cheap, but 5 years is quite a long life for a computer :)

-washboard

[rossid]

It's a 5 year old computer. Unless you're running it as a server, you should just buy a whole new computer instead of a $30 fan.























...of course I'm just kidding, sort of. Fans are easy to replace and pretty cheap, but 5 years is quite a long life for a computer :)

-washboard
LOL - but your point is well taken.

Someone at work said a fan. My son and father-in-law did clean out the dust yesterday.

[The Unknown Gomer]

For the first time ever, I agree with UG ;)
http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/shocked019.gif

*looks to see if pigs are flying by my office window* ;)

It's a 5 year old computer. Unless you're running it as a server, you should just buy a whole new computer instead of a $30 fan.

...of course I'm just kidding, sort of. Fans are easy to replace and pretty cheap, but 5 years is quite a long life for a computer :)

-washboard

I tend to replace/upgrade parts on mine as needed to stretch out the lifespan of my existing computer. I'm a firm believer in squeezing every last bit of life out of a current PC before donating it to my mother, who is actually on the second of my two hand-me-down PCs, and buying a new one. When I get to a point where there are two or three programs/games out there that just will not run on my existing PC even with parts upgrades, then I start thinking replacement, and then get the best PC that I can afford. My current Vaio is probably at least 4 or 5 years old, and now that I've upgraded the memory to its 2GB max, I'll be hanging onto it for a while longer, I think, since I've yet to even swap out either the graphics or sound cards. Next upgrade will be a bigger hard drive though. After this long of time, lack of space is becoming a real issue. (Hmm... possible project while I'm off work after Christmas next week? It's been quite a while since I've cussed at a hardware installation gone haywire. :) )

[Andi]

It's a 5 year old computer. Unless you're running it as a server, you should just buy a whole new computer instead of a $30 fan.


I have had mine for 9 years....works great.......except I have no sound. lol

really though, I am thinking of buying a new one.

[mat1583]

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/shocked019.gif

*looks to see if pigs are flying by my office window* ;)



I tend to replace/upgrade parts on mine as needed to stretch out the lifespan of my existing computer. I'm a firm believer in squeezing every last bit of life out of a current PC before donating it to my mother, who is actually on the second of my two hand-me-down PCs, and buying a new one. When I get to a point where there are two or three programs/games out there that just will not run on my existing PC even with parts upgrades, then I start thinking replacement, and then get the best PC that I can afford. My current Vaio is probably at least 4 or 5 years old, and now that I've upgraded the memory to its 2GB max, I'll be hanging onto it for a while longer, I think, since I've yet to even swap out either the graphics or sound cards. Next upgrade will be a bigger hard drive though. After this long of time, lack of space is becoming a real issue. (Hmm... possible project while I'm off work after Christmas next week? It's been quite a while since I've cussed at a hardware installation gone haywire. :) )

I've upgraded the hard drive, fans, and RAM on my current computer. I think it's nearing 4-5 years old. I usually pass my old computer down to my parents as well. The way I figure it is that when I truly need a better graphics card, I will probably just buy a whole new computer. A decent graphics card is around $350. I could buy a whole new pc for about $650 more, which means a better power supply, mobo, cpu, etc...It just saves me more in the long run.

-washboard

[middletree]

It's a 5 year old computer. Unless you're running it as a server, you should just buy a whole new computer instead of a $30 fan.

I built mine 5 years ago, and it's still just fine. 1.6 GHz Athlon 2200+, and a gig of RAM. And I do some memory-intensive work, too, such as running SQL Server and Flash. However, it would not be very good if I wanted to do video stuff. But since I don't, it is perfect.

I passed down a 440mhz machine to my kids, and they don't know the difference. I also have Windows Server 2003 running on a 1 gHz mahcine with only 512 RAM. Works fine.

The thing that drives the need for faster computers, besides videos and gaming, is Windows Vista, which is slower than Christmas. I'm staying away from that monstrosity.

[rossid]

I have had mine for 9 years....works great.......except I have no sound. lol

really though, I am thinking of buying a new one.The sound card on my laptop at work needs to be replaced - it is a Gateway 450S which may be four years old or so - but in the next few months they may just swap it for a new computer. For some reason the hard drive is also bad I think...

[hochspeyer]

Sometimes all you need to do is clean the HDD and reinstall the OS. I like Darik's Boot 'N' Nuke utility to take a hard drive back to the Stone Age. (It's free!)

Then again, sometimes the best course for an old pc is to replace it, but if you donate it to ANYONE, the best course of action is to

#1- physically destroy the hard drive (recovery utioities these days are incredibly good!), or

#2- see #1

I have personally gotten el freebo computers with financial (investment/tax return) data still on the HDDs.

[middletree]

Sometimes all you need to do is clean the HDD and reinstall the OS.

The opening post says that the computer is making a loud noise. I doubt that your solution will work in this case.

[hochspeyer]

The opening post says that the computer is making a loud noise. I doubt that your solution will work in this case.
Not being able to hear the noise, it's difficult to diagnose long distance. Fans are often quite noisy, but if the HDD is gunked up, this could cause the cpu to do more work than it needs to do, thereby generating more heat, kicking up more dust and causing the fans to race. An additional case fan might help as well, and can be had for ~10 bucks.

[rossid]

I wonder if being in standby rather than shut down each night makes a difference, you know, not really running but maybe getting hot. I don't think so and our company recently did the same thing. Of course they can now install updates overnight.

[hochspeyer]

Very possible. I like shutting down a pc at night if possible- it gives the HDD the opportunity to go into "park" mode. We have three pc's at home, and I like to shut them down.