What causes the grinding noise in my computer tower?

Question

And is there anything I can do about it?

Answer 1

If it's what I am thinking, it's your computer chips communicating with each other, there isn't' anything you can do about it. It' just part of a computers life.  

Answer 2

Sounds like your hard disk is about to spin itself off this mortal coil.  I'd back up all your stuff asap.

Then again, it could also be a faulty fan.  I'd recommend opening it up and trying to figure out where its coming from.

Answer 3

Cooling fan touching something?

Answer 4

Several things could be causing a grinding noise within a computer.  First and foremost, if you're not comfortable opening up and working inside a computer, then don't.  Take it to a computer service technician.

If you do want to take a look, then open the system.  How you do this is completely dependent on the manufacturer and model of the system.  Some systems are relatively easy to get into, others, not so easy.

If you can get into the system, then check to make sure that a wire or cable is not too close to the CPU or processor fan.  This could cause a rubbing or grinding noise.

If no wires or cables are touching the CPU fan then check to see if you have a CD in your CDROM drive.  Several models of CDROM drives have gears that help spin up the CDROM and some are quite noisy and may produce a grinding noise.  If you leave a music or other CDROM in the CDROM drive all the time then every time you login to your computer the drive will spin up and may create that grinding noise.  If you currently have a  CDROM in your drive, then remove it and see if the grinding disapears.

If that's not your problem then it very well could be that your hard drive is just very loud.  Your hard drive creates "chatter" or a grinding sound whenever it is being accessed.  It could be that this is somewhat normal, but if this is a realatively new grinding noise that you just noticed and it's not one of the items listed above, then the drive could be going bad.  You'll want to get your data backed up as soon as you can.

Again, a good computer service technician should be able to check all of these for you if you're not comfortable with working on a system.

Answer 5

Two things come to mind. It could be a lose fan, or it could be a Hard Drive.

If you aren't getting data corruption errors, than it is probably a fan. As far as what you can do, you can try to figure out what fan it is and adjust it. This would require you to open the machine, which I would not reccomend you do if you are not confident in what you are doing.

Find someone who knows how to assemble computers (Not just how to use the hardware) and ask them to take a look.

Oh yeah, and be sure to THANK THEM. Helping people with their personal computer problems is a thankless job. Usually the people come back 6 months later and say something is broken and they must have caused broken it.

Answer 6

Three things:

- A fan is dying or out of whack and rubbing up against its housing. Open your case and listen for the location of the grinding. Replace that fan or have a professional replace it.

- Your hard drive is about to give up the ghost. Back up as soon as you can. In fact it's just a good idea to back up anyway.

- If you hear it when you turn on your computer and it's trying to boot from an available drive it could be your floppy disk drive as it tries to see if it has a floppy disk in it. This is normal.

Answer 7

It's either the case fan rubbing against something or your hard drive could be about to fail. If you are up to it, remove the case and see if you can locate the noise directly but be sure not to touch anything inside for risk of damaging the computer or yourself in the process.

Answer 8

It's just the hard disk it's nothing to worry about all pcs do it just some are quieter than other due to the type of hard disc or rigidity of the casing.