PC seems to have gone a bit mad?! Hard drive issue or more besides?

angelfire

Hi, I've a fairly new Dell that has recently starting giving me problems.

Firstly, it seems noisier than usual and as I type this is making an intermittent kind of groaning sound - not really loud but I can hear it!

Now of late I've occassionally gotten a blue screen but haven't noted the message I've just switched it off at the wall and when it's come back on it's been ok.

When I control /alt /delete I have loads of processes running?

This afternoon my partner has plugged in a branf new buffalo external drive and copied over everything in the C drive, as I suspect the hard drive might be on it's way out. Could this drive be making things worse perhaps?

i'm running avg anti virus (did a full scan last week and it stated clean), and avg anti spyware, which, again come up clean following a scan.

Ideas on what to do and in what order would be greatly appreciated!

thanks in advance

angelfire

Anyone????????

TechTerry

Is your computer running slower than it did?

How many processes are running?

Have you tried touching the case, i sometimes here a rattle and its because the case is vibrating.

If the HDD is on its way out then you would here a sort of buzzing sound which sounds some sort electrical. My HDD went in my dell a few months after i got it. Had a new one next day as they allowed me to fit it myself and only needed to send the part.

As for the Blue screen, have you installed any new hardware or device drivers? When i say hardware i mean things such as USB drives, printers, webcams, RAM, etc

totalsolutions

Sounds like overheating / cooling fan blocked??

angelfire

TechTerry wrote: »

Is your computer running slower than it did?

How many processes are running?

Have you tried touching the case, i sometimes here a rattle and its because the case is vibrating.

If the HDD is on its way out then you would here a sort of buzzing sound which sounds some sort electrical. My HDD went in my dell a few months after i got it. Had a new one next day as they allowed me to fit it myself and only needed to send the part.

As for the Blue screen, have you installed any new hardware or device drivers? When i say hardware i mean things such as USB drives, printers, webcams, RAM, etc

Hi, many thanks for your reply

I have 35 processes running. The weird sound has now stopped?

The only devices I've ever installed have been the printer right when we first got the machine. Other than that, my daughter does a lot of uploading and downloading of data to and from here phone - could it be that?

Since last posting I've run the malwarebytes anti malware, which found and fixed 18 issues. Then i ran Ccleaner and that sorted out a few things and I've also uninstalled some programs I ahven't used in a long while but I still ahve these 35 processes?

TechTerry

Thats a good amount, I have 54 !

A lot of the stuff is essential windows stuff.

The sound is probbally your case vibrating, hard drives vibrating or fans vibrating. It would be quite noticable if something major was to go wrong. BUT allways backup, its allways good to keep a backup just in case.

angelfire

Many thanks guys. i've also just downloaded and ran spybot which came up with 4 minor things. Going to double check avg and possibly use something different instead...