My pc sounds like the cargo-loader from aliens.

Irish Gardener

Hello all.
My home office sounds like the loading bay of the spaceship Sulaco.

You see, my Dell Vostro 400 has been causing me some concern with the sounds it is making while it is under very little pressure, if any.
It seems to make what sounds like an ummh, ummh, ummh, sound for a burst of about three to five, then silent for a while, then it begins all over again.
I suppose you could compare the sound to a quieter version of that made by the hydraulic rams of an exosuit cargo-loader.
You know the one used by Ripley in the aliens movie.



This sound happens even though the cpu usage is at about 1-2% and page file at about 697mb or so.
Under no pressure really.

What I have found does stop these sounds is when go into display properties and change my screen resolution to 1280 x 1024 pixels.
But as the monitor is 1680 x 1050, and I am used to its unsquashed look, this is not the ideal situation.

My pc specs.

Base...... Intel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q6600 processor (2.40GHz, 1066MHz, 8MB cache)

Memory...... 4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]

Monitor...... 22in E228WFP WIDESCREEN UK/Irish (1680 x 1050) TCO99 DVI-D

Video Card...... 256MB ATI® Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card

Hard Drive...... 500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst cache

Running..... XP professional.


Would any of you know a way to halt the constant sounds but still keep a sharp resolution.

DonkeyStyle \o/

D'you reckon it's a fan ramping up for a few seconds then back down again?
I have an amp that does that when the room is warm.
If you've no case fans, try leaving the side off the case for a while and see if it still happens... it'll also give you the opportunity to get a handle on where the noise is coming from.
If it's the gfx card fan, then you can always fit a custom heatsink/fan... and/or remove any overclocks you've got on the card.

Irish Gardener

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote: »

D'you reckon it's a fan ramping up for a few seconds then back down again?
I have an amp that does that when the room is warm.
If you've no case fans, try leaving the side off the case for a while and see if it still happens... it'll also give you the opportunity to get a handle on where the noise is coming from.
If it's the gfx card fan, then you can always fit a custom heatsink/fan... and/or remove any overclocks you've got on the card.

Could be the graphics card fan alright DonkeyStyle \o/.
To be fair the sound is not that of something broken or worn, it's just that it comes on when the resolution is set to its out of the box spec.
This is even from cold in the morning and my office is not the warmest.
I have not tampered with or overclocked the card, wouldn't know how to be honest.

It's done this from day one, but at the start I did not pay much heed to it.
Maybe another Dell Vostro 400 owner might be able to tell me if theirs does the same.
Any out there?

witnessmenow

Ive this cards baby brother , the 2400 512mb and its siting right beside me and I can hear the fans of the Pc but not the graphic cards (my case side is off too) I'd ring dell and complain, doesn't sound right.