Strange computer "clicking" problems

P

Punkrulz

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 11, 2001
Messages
1,458
Hey guys,

Very strange issue going on over on my personal computer, and I'm not sure what the problem is. I really have never had problems with my computer before. Lately I've been getting some artifacts appearing in WoW. Beyond that, last night my computer began making a really strange clicking sound over and over, then would stop for a decent amount of time.

My computer, when shutting down, typically makes a single "click" noise the second before it shuts down. If I perform a shut down, watch the hard drive do it's thing, computer clicks, then power shuts off. When playing my game last night, every now and again my computer would make that same "click" once a second for maybe 10 seconds at a time. Then it would stop for awhile, and then occur. It also seemed to only occur if I had Firefox open while playing the game, but this wasn't always the case.

Any ideas? I really hope it isn't my hard drive. Performance did not seem decreased by any means when the clicking was occurring, and there were no unknown processes that were occurring on my machine during that time.
 
back up your data. dying HD wouldn't explain the artifacts (get your video card some proper cooling yo) but clicking is never good. does the clicking noise sound like the heads retracting/extending ?
 
does your western digital come with any diagnostic tools? if so have them perform some test on that drive or go to their homepage and look for utilities.some cliking is normal;grinding and scratching noises are not
 
The ticking noise from seeking is normal. Clicks are generally bad, lol. I agree with thrawn86. Backup your data and run some diagnostics on that HDD. I'd still replace the HDD. The longest a clicking drive of mine has lasted was 1.5yrs. The shortest was 30mins.
 
Alright, I'll check out their website and see what I can do to it tonight. Who knows, the problem may not even occur again.

Um... what's the difference between ticking and clicking lol!

I can't tell if it's the heads going back and forth or not. Personally I feel that if that was the case then performance would have suffered.

As per the artifacts... my case should be cool enough. My ambient room temperature is max 72F when my computer is usually on, with 2 intake fans, 2 exhaust. I am upgrading my CPU fan tomorrow when it comes in the mail from a loud 80mm to a quieter yet more CFM 120mm.
 
Yeah, sounds like the hard drive. Have heard several make that clicking or relay like sound before they died...
 
when i said clicking i meant the every day noise the drive makes when its reading/writing to disk:D
 
Well while I haven't gotten the chance to run my diagnostic utilities yet, I do want to report that my hard drive did not make any clicking sounds that were bad last night... so far so good. I wonder how rare of an event that is.
 
Hard drive died!!!

Bah. I was replacing my 80mm HSF Fan for a quieter 120mm one. When everything was plugged back in and I turned the computer on, my computer refused to boot, and the hard drive was making loads of noise... repeated non-stop clicking. My computer also kept forgetting it's processor speed settings for some strange reason.

Anywho, fortunately it was my spare 40gb drive and not my primary 200gb drive. :) I'm not sure why my computer won't boot though at all with it still connected. I wonder if it has to do with both of my hard drives being set to cable select, and with the bad drive sending the wrong information it's messing up the computer.

I've thought about connecting it just to see if I can run utilities, but I think when I did that the first time I've locked windows up.
 
Punkrulz said:
Hard drive died!!!

Bah. I was replacing my 80mm HSF Fan for a quieter 120mm one. When everything was plugged back in and I turned the computer on, my computer refused to boot, and the hard drive was making loads of noise... repeated non-stop clicking.
Click to expand...
>.<

Same thing happened to me dude, but instead of replacing a fan I had to rewire something.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top