No PC is truly silent, but your computer shouldn’t be noisier than your lawnmower. If you have to turn up your music just to drown out the whirring or grinding noises your computer makes, you may want to look into that—it could be the first signal of some serious problems.
Knowing how to tell different hard drive noises apart and learning what they might mean, can save your computer. Or at least give you an unequivocal pass to buy a new one.
Clicking or grinding noises
Let’s start with the most worrisome sound. If your computer starts to click, grind, or make any sort of low-pitched buzzing noise, you should stop what you’re doing and check the hard drive. This sound could indicate a dying disk. Do not ignore this sound.
To check your drive’s health, I recommend a third-party tool like CrystalDiskInfo [Windows] or DriveDx [macOS]. Fire up the program, click on each of your drives in the menu, and make sure they’re all listed as “Good.” If it indicates your drive is anything less than that, you should back up all your data as soon as possible. You may still have some time to do so—occasionally a drive marked “Caution” can still run for years, but if it’s making noises, the drive’s death might be close. Once all your files are safe, consider replacing your drive with an SSD—not only will it likely last longer, but it’ll make your computer feel much faster. If your hard drives are healthy, take the incident as a warning and avoid any unpleasant surprises by backing up your data regularly, because as it happens to any living creature, all hard drives will die one day.
One you’ve ruled out your hard drive as the culprit, you’ll need to dig a little deeper to find the source of that clicking sound. If your computer still has a DVD drive, then it could be in the process of failing, and needs repair or replacement.
Finally, in a lot of desktop PCs, a clicking noise could just mean a cable has gotten too close to a fan, and is getting hit repeatedly by the blades. If you’re comfortable with a screwdriver, open up your PC and make sure the fans are clear of obstructions.
Loud whirring noises
If there’s one sound every computer user knows well, it’s the loud whoosh that comes from an overzealous fan running at full speed. On a desktop PC, this will likely be low-to-medium pitch like the video above, and on a laptop, it could be higher-pitched and much more annoying. The smaller the fan, the louder and higher pitched that noise will be.
If you’re hearing this, there’s a very good chance your machine just needs some cooling adjustment. You might also want to check your hard drive’s health, just in case, since a drive spinning up and down repeatedly could create a similar sound. Finally, check to see if there’s a disc spinning in the DVD drive—sometimes those can be obnoxiously loud even if they’re working properly.
If your fans are indeed too loud, start by opening Task Manager in Windows [Ctrl+Shift+Esc] or Activity Monitor in macOS [under Applications > Utilities] and see if any applications are taking up a large portion of your CPU. If your computer’s working hard, the fans will work hard to cool it, so you may have a program running in the background you forgot about, or malware eating up resources without you knowing. Close the offending program or run a malware scan to see if that helps.
If your computer is idle and still making fan noise, it could be overheating. A program like Core Temp [Windows] or Fanny [macOS] can tell you if your CPU is running hot. As a ballpark, if you aren’t running anything strenuous and your CPU is 70 degrees celsius or higher, I’d say that’s abnormal, and will likely cause excessive fan noise. If you’re using your laptop in bed, make sure to put a tray or anything solid under it—your clothes, skin or blankets might be preventing the system from cooling off, making the fans work harder and louder. The same happens with accumulated dust, so give the fan grilles a few passes with a dust blower, or better yet, an electric duster. If you feel comfortable, you might even want to open up your machine and wipe the dust off the fan with a clean microfiber cloth.
Finally, if you have a desktop PC—especially one you built yourself—you may just need to adjust the fan curves in the BIOS. Some of your fans may be running at 75% or 100% all the time by default, which is unnecessary. Or, the curves may be set in a weird spot that causes the fans to constantly ramp up for a few seconds to cool the CPU, but then they ramp back down, allowing the CPU to get hot again. Press *Delete* as your computer starts to enter the BIOS screen, and look for any fan control settings you can play with—try a lower setting, but don’t set them too low, lest your temperatures get too high.
Sounds coming from your speakers, even when you aren’t playing anything
Put your ear closer to the sound—is it coming from inside your computer or is it coming from the speakers? Speakers are supposed to make sound, but if you’re hearing noise from them even when your computer isn’t playing audio, something might be wrong. Make sure the speaker cable is plugged all the way in to your PC—you’ll usually hear a click that tells you the cable is fully connected, but sometimes you have to really shove it to get that last millimeter in. If that doesn’t work, you can troubleshoot your speakers by plugging them into another device [like your phone] to see if the sound persists. The problem could be in your speaker’s cable, or it could just be feedback from the internals of your PC, in which case a USB sound card, also known as a DAC, might help.
You might also be experiencing a ground loop, in which case a ground loop isolator can reduce the noise. I’ve even had speakers that picked up faint radio signals due to poorly shielded cables, which is a remarkably spooky experience.
Ultimately, there are so many things that can cause unwanted noise from speakers that we could probably write a whole article on the subject—but if you play around with your connections, you may be able to narrow down the source, and replace the offending component.
Buzzing or screeching noises
If none of the above have fixed the problem, but you’re still hearing a buzzing sound, it could be just about anything. Heck, if they’re mild enough, any of the above problems could be described as “buzzing,” so check your hard drive and running processes before you move on.
Once you’ve discarded all the scenarios above, my first guess would be that you’re experiencing coil whine—one of my least favorite noises in computing, since there’s often little you can do about it.
Coil whine happens when the coils in your components start vibrating at just the right frequency to start making a very annoying noise. It can be anywhere from a low-pitched buzz to a high pitched squeal, and often happens when your computer is under load. If you can pinpoint the source, you might be able to mitigate the noise, at least to some degree. For example, in gaming PCs, coil whine commonly comes from the graphics card when it’s doing a lot of work, in which case you can decrease your graphics settings or turn on VSync to lighten the load. I’ve also heard coil whine on a lot of power adapters—if you move your laptop or monitor’s power brick further away, it may not be as annoying. Some laptop manufacturers may even offer other power adapters without the old school “brick” that may coil whine less. In other cases, there’s nothing you can do, and you’ll have to suffer through the noise.
If you aren’t convinced the buzzing sound is coil whine, you might also look back at your fans. If they are vibrating against the steel case of your desktop PC, some rubber dampeners may help stop the sound. Your fans may also need lubrication, so a small drop of sewing machine oil in the bearing of an old fan can make it run like new again. And if you have one of the ever-so-trendy all-in-one liquid cooling units in your gaming PC, make sure it’s mounted properly, and check the manual to see if the pump is adjustable—turning the pump speed down could lessen the buzzing sound it makes.
While no laptop is completely silent, they can sometimes start making weird noises, which can be disconcerting. While this is not always indicative of a serious problem, it is certainly a sign that your laptop needs attention.
So in this guide, we are going to look at the five most common noises your laptop can make. This will help you determine whether the sound is normal or whether further action is required.
Older computers and laptops fitted with a conventional HDD can start emitting a strange clicking sound as they get older. The sound is low pitched and not immediately noticeable, but you will become aware of it over time.
The sound is caused by the HDD read-write actuator resetting itself. There are several reasons why this can happen, including corrupted data, a damaged disk surface or a faulty drive head.
Either way, it is a sign your HDD is on its way out and needs to be replaced. You should look to replace it with an SSD sooner rather than later because it is much easier to retrieve data from a live HDD drive than a dead one.
A laptop making a high pitched whining noise can usually be attributed to coil whine. This is the sound of your coil vibrating at a high frequency as electricity passes through it. The noise often gets louder under heavy load.
Coil whine is not a serious problem, it’s just a side effect of some components. The problem is usually only noticeable on high powered laptops with dedicated graphics cards. In most cases, the noise is not indicative of a fault, but if it gets louder over time, it may be a sign your graphics card needs replacing.
A laptop making a loud buzzing noise when you turn it on is one of the most common faults we come across. The sound can be quite disconcerting because it’s so loud, but it’s actually not that serious.
Usually, the noise is down to dust becoming trapped in the cooling fan. These fans help to keep your laptop cool so the sound will get louder as the laptop heats up. The problem is easily solved by cleaning out the fans or replacing them with new ones.
Speakers should emit sound, that’s what they do. But sometimes laptop speakers can emit a strange hissing noise even when you are not playing anything. This is usually down to defective shielding on the speaker cables.
The problem can usually be fixed by installing new cables. However, on some laptops, the speaker cables are soldered to the system board which can make them difficult to replace. In this case, you will either have to live with the problem or replace the board.
A grinding noise is the most worrying noise your laptop can make. This is the sound of the hard drive read-write head coming into contact with the disc platter. In most cases, this will result in irreparable damage to the disc.
Hard drives don’t usually fail like this without warning, however. In most cases, your HDD will start emitting a clicking sound long before a head crash. So if your HDD starts clicking, back up your data and look to get it replaced sooner rather than later.
If your laptop is making a funny noise and you are not sure what to do about it, we can help. Our technicians have years of experience troubleshooting laptop faults and we use the latest tools and equipment to identify problems quickly.
Get in touch today by calling 08 8952 7400 or complete the contact form here and we’ll get back to you at a convenient time..