My computer is screaming at me :(

[Engine]

I've noticed something odd about my computer lately. I've been running the rc5 client on it for a little over a year now with no problems, but recently it has started making noise when running the client. It's a high-pitched sort of whine, and it usually goes away if I pause the client.

It's a fickle noise, though, because sometimes I'll reboot and the noise is gone. But a lot of the time it's there.
I'm not sure what's causing it. I used to think it was my processor, but I just replaced my "old" p3 with a celermine, and it kept making that noise. I think it's the motherboard, or something.

Anyone else notice this about their machines?

 

[JHutch]

It has to be something with moving parts, like a fan (most likely), a hard drive (second most likely), or a CDROM (least likely, because the client never access the CDROM). Fans are usually the worst at making annoying noises. Check it.

JHutch

 

[mindless]

Sounds like a temp alarm. You said you just replaced your cpu, is your heatsink seated properly.

 

[xrayman]

Had a similar prob on a dually. I found that one of the two fans on one cpu had stalled and the other was making the noise. All I did was to correct this was blow the dust from both fans/heatsinks.
Even with a heavy duty air filtration system, this stuff cruds-up running 24/7.
I try to clean out all my stuff twice a year, but even that is sometime not often enough

 

[Engine]

I don't think it's the fans, because they run all the time, and it wouldn't make sense for the noise to *stop* the second the client stops. As for the hard drive, even with checkpointing on it only accesses the hard drive once every few minutes, and the noise is a constant whine.

I don't think it's a temp alarm either, because my motherboard monitor shows like 85 degrees (F). Hell, my new celermine actually runs cooler than my p3. The only time my computer gets hot is while playing games (Diablo II is really bad about causing heat, for some reason. The motherboard monitor reads about 110 F after playing Diablo II for a while), and I think that's because of my video card. I had to unplug the fan on my tnt2U about six months ago because it started making too much noise.

Other weird stuff... if I bring up the window to the client, and hover my mouse over the minimize buttons and stuff, the noise stops for a split second while the "what's this" balloon is popping up.

 

[LeBlatt]

Looks like your cpu, when running at 100%, is generating radio frequency that is received by some device like a sound card or whatever, and turned into sound.

Tell me if I'm crazy, but my tv emits a whistle whenever my cdrom is reading.

 

[JonB]

Have you determined where the noise comes from? Sound card? Motherboard piezo-electric noise maker? Case speaker?

If it is your sound card (if you unplug the wire to the speakers and it stops), then you may need to re-route some wires away from your processor. They may be picking up and amplifying the squeals of dying RC5 keys as they're cracked. I get that sound in the metal fillings of my teeth sometimes.

If it is your motherboard noise-maker, then a piece of duct-tape can silence that.

Case speaker? are you the only one left who keeps it connected?

 

[BurntKooshie]

LeBlatt could be totally right. My old Cyrix machine would, whenever i did something that accessed the harddrive, interfere a little bit with my radio reception I have seen a link of a guy who made a program that would send enough data with a certain frequency across the FSB so that it interfered with radio reception in a pattern

Another thing to note is that the hlt instruction causes so many voltage spikes and such that it can interfere with peoples speakers. I speak from experience, and have a few friends who've asked me why, so I told them to crack rc5 or do gamma flux instead (one agreed!), which solved the problem. What happens is whenever you use the CPU with the hlt instructions running, you get some static over your speakers...really annoying.

not that this actually helps much...

 

[MGallik]

There's some code in Rain and a few of the other cpu cooling programs
that can cause emi thats picked up by the sound card. It sounds like
what you describe. There's also some in NT. Have you added, changed,
or installed anything within a week or so of the noise starting?

 

[MWalkden]

Don't discord the fan idea either, I have had similar problems and it did in fact turn out to be a fan. What happed was the power supply would hit a certian stress level (load level) and a noise would appear. I never could tell at what level the load was, but doing certian things would make it come or go. I messed around with it for quite a while and finnaly I replaced the power supply. Presto, it went away.

I ended up using that power supply in another system, and did not have the noise. The load was different in this PC and I figure that is why. That power supply finally failed a short time later (fan went out). It must have been heading for the dumpster all along.

 

[BurntKooshie]

<< There's some code in Rain and a few of the other cpu cooling programs
that can cause emi thats picked up by the sound card. It sounds like
what you describe. There's also some in NT. Have you added, changed,
or installed anything within a week or so of the noise starting?
>>



That's what i said, but more compact Its the HLT instruction, and the NT kernal has it built in.

 

[ZapZilla]

No, No, No. You guys have the wrong diagnosis.

Quite simply, you've got a sick cow in your system that is in pain when processing blocks. Shove some aspirin tablets into the case, and put a cold pack on the monitor. In three days, if the whine is still there, e-mail DNet and have them give you a RMA and a replacement cow.

>PS: Singing to your computer will also sooth and help keep those cows feeling good!

 

[Assimilator1]

Engine

>>>I had to unplug the fan on my tnt2U about six months ago because it started making too much noise<<<

I hope you've replaced the fan since then &amp; plugged it in!:Q

 

[Engine]

>>I hope you've replaced the fan since then &amp; plugged it in!

Eh It's been running fine without the fan. Even if it does fry eventually, it'll just give me an excuse to get a Geforce II. I just couldn't justify spending the 300+ dollars on it when I was happy with the performance of my current card.

 

[MGallik]

BurntKooshie

I was signing in and typing my reply as you posted.

I didnt see your post(s) until a few moments ago.

 

[Wellcky]

Maybe it's the radiaton emiting from the monitor.. that's making us lose our minds.. I've lost mine a yeah ago though

 

[Train]

I used to impress my co-workers by saying about 5 seconds ahead of time when the phone was going to ring.

The thing was my radio sat right on top of the phone wire, and there would be tiny, hardly noticeable blips in the song that was playing, i learned to assocoate these with incoming phone calls. They all thought i was psychic until they caught on how i was doing it.

 

[Train]

oh and about singing to your cows, i just saw a history channel special on cowboys the other day.

During cattle drives, the cowboys on night watch had to constantly sing to the herd, if they didnt, any noise in the quiet night, like a stick breaking, or someone coughing, would start a stampede. Sure, cows running fast is good for RC5, but the bad thing about it was that stampedes usually got a lot of the smaller cows trampled to death

kinda scares me, i have a P75 cracking right next to my Athlon 800! better start humming them nice a tune at night.

 

[xrayman]

Try this one.

Go into your soundcards mixer utility and mute the microphone.

 

[Engine]

Well, I'm thinking that the whole fan thing might be right after all. I got under my desk last night and unplugged my speaker jack from the sound card, and the noise did not stop. It is most definitely coming from inside the case. It almost sounds like it's coming from the power supply, but I'm not sure.
I'll try some of those other things tonight, though, and try to pin down what's making the noise.

 

[ZapZilla]

Remember, the power supply has a fan too.