Worrying noises on startup!

[kp99]

Hi there, and thanks in advance.

 

My year-old PC has, over the past few days, begun to make a worrying buzzing sound when I turn it on. The noise continues indefinitely until I switch it off – but usually disappears if I turn it on again a few seconds later. After that, the computer works completely normally (including, it seems so far, for high-intensity processes like gaming), and subsequent restarts cause no such problem. But as soon as I wait a few hours (or overnight), the problem occurs again.

 

I’ve opened the case while the buzzing was happening but couldn’t isolate where the noise was coming from. Any ideas what the problem might be? I suspect it may be a fan or hard drive – but that's just an uninformed guess, really. Other than the noise, the computer seems to have no problems and restarting on start-up is only a minor inconvenience. But I’m concerned that this might underlie a more damaging problem.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

Odd and annoying noises can be a pain to isolate when not glaringly obvious, as you say it could be anything mechanically based, however it could also be the mains transformer inside the power supply.

A way to isolate the fans out of the equation is to disconnect the fan wire from the socket momentarily, if the noise stops, but starts when the fan is plugged back in, that will be the cause and a new fan is needed.

 

Do not disconnect the hard drive itself while power is on though, you could really damage it. Only disconnect fans, and only for a very short time, just long enough to see if it is that one.

If it turns out to be the power supply transformer, you may be lucky enough to feel the buzzing vibration on the metal case of the power supply, same for the hard drive if it is that, though hard drives seldom make anything more than clicks and clunks when starting to fail.

 

Nev.