Help! Grinding noise from pc tower/ 2 green lights - Dell Dimension 1100 (XP Home)

bgscotty

Dell Dimension 1100 (XP Home)- cause of "grinding noise" & both green lights on front of tower to come on?

Hello!

I'd be grateful for some advice...

Over the past few days, when I start up my 18-month-old Dell Dimension 1100 pc (XP Home), a "grinding" noise comes from the tower.

This stops after a few minutes, though the noise returns intermittently during the day- both when I'm working on the pc and when it's not in use.

When the noise starts, in addition to the constant green "on"
light, a second green light flashes on the front.

- What might be causing the noise?

- Are there any checks I can run?

- Are there any steps I can take to fix the problem?

(I upgraded the RAM from 250 MB to 1 GB only 8 weeks ago)

The pc is within warranty.

Thank you in advance.

Scotty

Garz

The yellow light maybe a disk activity light showing your Hard Disk being accessed however Im not certain as most cases vary with what colour LED is used. It maybe an indication of your hard disk getting old, or indeed on its way out. My advice would be to backup all your critical data nad look to invest in a new one sooner rather than later.

Red_Rose_Exile

Could be a number of things,

• A bearing on your CPU cooling fan, the PSU fan or if it has one the graphics card cooling fan.
• A wire rubbing in the cooling fan
• A Hard drive failing

I would suspect the last option, judging by the light activity, although 18 months isn't old, it may have already decided it is ready for the tip

You are going to have to get up close and personal with your tower, take the side off the tower, and listen carefully to exactly where this sound is coming from, if you want to stand any chance of identifying the source of the noise.

Make a visual inspection of the fans. If there is an accumulation of dust, turn of the PC, unplug and using a soft brush, remove the dust from the fans.

Make sure none of the cables are interfering with the cpu fan.

laney66

Hi There,

It sounds very much like the hard drive is on its way out. However, if its still under warranty I would get Dell to sort it out.

Does the pc boot up ok? You could try and run CHKDSK (Check Disk) from the the command line and see if that throws up anything as a starting point. Hope I dont sound too teccie, Im doing the A+ cert at college at the moment so questions like this are good practice for me!

bookduck

"the PC is is warranty" ---- give Dell a call!

generally loud grinding noises come from a few sources excluding internal speaker.

You will have to open your pc up for this to check.
1) psu fan (2) cpu fan (3) air intake/extraction fan - if the is one) (4)videocard fan (5) floppy, cd, hdd

Noise could be cased by a cable being trapped on the fan blades too. Usually it is a fan that causes the problem, but fans do not normally cause both green leds to come one. Check the Dell forums.

Some people will oil them, I believe you should buy a new one, as I've done the disassembly-clean-oil in the past and it has worked well on both occasions, but weeks later there still was no noise but the fans had stopped turning too.

With the case open, wait till the noise occurs then gently rest a wood dowel, wooden spoon - something long and non conductive on the outer case of the fans with the other end in your ear and listed for which device has the loudest grating noise

motorguy

I'd say its your hard disk on its way out. Backup any important docs in the meantime

indierocker85

If the system lags when the noise occurs, then I would definately aggree that the Hard drive is on its way out. Backup all data just in case however it could be a broken fan blade catching. If its under warranty I wouldn't recommend poking around inside. I would leave it to the manufacturer to sort. Shouldn't take much doing.