Possible Hard Drive Issue

[Atrusthegod]

When I turn my computer on and every once in a while I'll hear a sqeaking sound. I can hear it right now, its somewhat quiet, but I can hear it. Its not an animal so that rulls that out XD. But it's not the DVD drive either which is the only disk drive I have on it. Theres no disk in it. Im thinking its the hard drive. Its probably a good 3 at least, 4 years old more than likely. The hard drive I have is a Seagate 160gig Here is the model or serial number listed in my device manager. ST3160023A. Could it be my hard drive thats going?

 

[King X13]

Its pretty vague to say a sqeaking sound and rule it a hard drive for someone that hasnt heard it. but yes it could be the hard drive, it could be one of your case fans or cpu fans, the bearings could be going and causing that sound. my old video card fan used to make an annoying sqeaking sound till i replaced it. its really hard to say since i havent hear it, but try unpluging your case fans and seeing. also i dont know how long it take for the sound to appear, but try unpluging the power to your hard drive and booting, of course youll get an error but if you still heard the sound then you can rule it out and vise versa.

 

[Atrusthegod]

I'll try unplugging my hard drive, but if its not that, if its the cpu fan, i dont know where id get one. I have a dell2350 and i heard that if you put ina different fan, you'll get an error noise every time you boot up. I have to go to work then I'll try what you suggested when I get back home.

 

[FlashDude]

Have you removed the sidepanel yet?? I am pretty sure that the 2350 has a semi passive cooling system. There is a funnel that runs from the heatsink (no fan attached) to an 80 or 120mm fan that is actually attached to the case Just get the same size fan and make sure you orient it the same way and you should get around the same fan speed thus keeping the system monitoring settings in the bios from giving you error's. I wouldn't buy an aftermarket hsf for that because the hold downs may not be the same for a typical socket 478 cpu. (sorry dude you bought a dell) And cooling and cable management are the only things dell is good at. Wow that thing only has a 200 watt psu. This of course is if it is the fan that is the noice. If its not don't waste time back the hdd up.

 

[Atrusthegod]

sigh.. I know I got a dell. Anyway.. I measured the fan its 3.5in by 3.5in by 5 inches corner to corner and about 1 inch thick. What size fan would I want to get? I know its the fan now. I took the fan out and gave it a good flick and heard the noise a bit.

 

[FlashDude]

My math isn't that good, But I would say that's an 80mm fan

 

[Atrusthegod]

According to a calculator i found to turn inches to millimeters, 3.5 inches is 88.9mm and 1 inch is 25 millimeters, so would an 80x80x25mm fan work then?

 

[CrazeD]

Try cleaning the fan first.