Re: "Noise" upon booting computer

daisypearl wrote:
I have my fingers crossed that someone will tell me that I do NOT have a
hard drive problem but I fear the worst. I have a 3 year old Pentium 4
with XP Pro. My software is up to date, all works well and I have a TON
of info on the computer. I do have files backed up routinely offsite
but hope I do not have to deal with a new hard drive.

Yesterday morning I turned on the computer and for the first time ever
something seemed to be whirring at random speeds; it got louder and
softer and finally settled down to its normal quiet self. it booted up
in the normal time and I had no problems. Later in the morning I turned
it off to see if the noise had been a fluke; it booted up as always with
no problems and no noise. However, the same noises occurred this
morning; it takes about 5 minutes for it to settle down. I had some
automatic updates from Microsoft downloaded and restarted the computer
after they were installed, no problem.

The computer was blown out last week--my husband takes the cover off
and cleans it out about once a month. We live on a dirt road in the
boonies and have dogs so there is always dust and dog hair in it.

Is there a possibility it is anything else other than the hard drive? I am pretty good with software but hardware is definitely not my thing. I do not have any problems in taking the CPU in but there are very few
techs in the area and I would like to make absolutely sure it is not a
fan problem. My husband can [and has] changed a fan. I cannot go back
to the manufacturer [Monarch Computers] because they went belly up.

If it is the hard drive is there any software that the tech might have
to just migrate the system as is to a new hard drive or am I facing a
new drive with the OS on and nothing else, just waiting for me to spend
days reinstalling all that software...

Pardon me while I scream.....

daisy


My first guess is it sounds like a fan has a bad bearing and it makes noise for a few minutes till it either gets hotter or either stops. It wouldn't take much to open the case and listen more closely. Fans are cheap, CPUs are not.
.

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