hard drive activity light + occasional noise

ih8stress

I have noticed that there is sometimes a tinny, rattle type noise from my dell desktop pc. It's not very loud and seems to be when the hard drive activity light stays on abit longer.
(It's usually flickering about once every second roughly). I presume it's when the hard drive is doing something?

Is this noise normal? I have had the pc for about a month now and it has done it all the time. Apart from that all I can hear is a humming sound, though I'm not techie enough to tell if this is the hard drive or fan running in the background:)

Thanks

BandJB

Run a full diagnostic disk scan. It's just a possibility that the head has crashed onto the recording medium and the surface is beginning to fragment. This is rare these days but my Dell had exactly this problem a few weeks after I bought it.

The disk scan is part of the Dell diagnostics. Not sure where you'll find this these days but there should be a message as part of the power-on sequence (it's "press F12" on my 5yr-old Dell). It'll take some time. If it starts to report bad sectors then note as many as you can for a while; stop the scan and repeat it to see if the same numbers come up or new ones get added.
If it varies between runs then you've almost certainly got fragments of the damaged disk surface floating about in the enclosure and contaminating other parts of the disk, so back up any important data and get on to Dell support.

If the scan comes up clean then it's probably just a slightly noisy disk and Windows and/or your anti-virus (you DO have one?) are running some housekeeping in the background - but keep an eye on the situation.


NOTE: Unless they've changed a lot since it happened to me then...
(a) The thickos at Dell won't know what you're talking about
(b) They'll make you run every other test before they try the disk check
(c) They'll only send you a blank drive as a replacement, leaving you to set it up
(d) They'll insist that you hand over the original at the time of delivering the replacement, so you've no chance of transferring the accessible data from the old to the new.

Good luck!

ih8stress

Hi, thanks for your reply and sorry for the delay in responding.

I'm halfway through sorting a load of photos at present and want to wait until I've finished and got them all safely backed up onto disc before I attempt anything.

With regards to your comments (a) to (d), as it is still under warranty, would I not just have to return the computer to Dell for them to replace any parts as necessary? I wouldn't have a clue how to do (c) and (d) for example.

Incidentally, anyone know how much it costs roughly to return things to Dell if needed? I just have the standard cover which doesn't include 'on-site' repairs unfortunately.

Thanks

closed

If the disk was failing, you'd notice more than a funny noise. Backup regularly, and see what happens.

ih8stress

Thanks, closed. I am backing up fairly regularly (onto disc only at moment, until I get an external hard drive).

I've only really got some docs and photos - no movies or music. Got the system recovery back up disc done.

Do you think I need to run a full diagnostic disk scan then, as suggested by BandJB?

Thanks:)

closed

You may as well to be safe, Dell will ask you to do this anyway.

It's difficult to diagnose a rattly noise without hearing it

ih8stress

Thanks, closed. I'll do it in the next day or two hopefully, when I've sorted my photos