Acer 5920 - strange noise from within!?

I occasionally (for example, every week or so?) get a beep / scratching / high-pitched noise that comes from inside my laptop. Very strange indeed - I think it's coming from the left side. What could be causing this? What sorts of components could be making that sort of noise?

I thought it might be the hard drive, but I've emailed Acer and they said that it could be the battery!?! Has anyone else had this problem and do you think it's serious enough for me to RISK a repair by Acer? I've heard bad things about their service!

 

Is this problem occur when You use battery power or when You charge battery?? Becouse I hear something when my laptop charges battery and also when I play Games on Max perf. The noise come from my speakers connected to line out hovever when I connect headphones to line out the problem disapears and sound is clear. So I don't get it;/

Try to check your HDD for badscectors maybe this problem is coused by them if only the noise come from HDD

 

It's not a constant noise, it just happens for about 1 second very rarely (like once a week for example). I don't think it's coming from the speakers (I am using external speakers plugged into the line out), and it sounds more mechanical. I've checked for bad sectors and nothing has been found.

This is why it's really confusing! Is the HDD in the left side of the laptop? Surely if it was making such a loud noise there would be a major problem, but it doesn't really seem to have any bad effects... not yet anyway.

What could be making such a beeping / scratching / high-pitched noise? Battery? HDD? Graphics card? Processor? Fan? When I thought about it, HDD seemed to be the only option...

 

Hi all,

I have also heard funny - very low frequency shrills when my hard disks reads. I happen to hear this when the ambience is very quiet. Eg. early in the mornings.

I think it it must be from HD.

 

Yes HDD is on the left side, it's under your left hand when You wriite.

 

Dannywanny,

I was just searching online for any information regarding this exact same problem when I happened upon your post here. I have precisely the same issue with my Acer Extensa 5420-5687. The laptop has been performing fine except for this one very strange anomaly. It is quite random and because of this it is hard to pinpoint any causes or contributing factors. I have considered the fact that it could be due to heat issues, but it JUST happened right before I read & replied to your post and I have it sitting on a cool kitchen table in an equally cool kitchen... so I think I can rule out overheating as the cause.

So far, I have not yet experienced any negative effects when this occurs, but it makes me very nervous... whenever I hear it I brace myself for the possibility of the hard drive seizing up, as it doesn't sound good at all.

If I find any more info I'll post back here...

BTW - Shamtu, in my case this has occurred while plugged in via AC charger and also while on battery power.

 

Yes, this sounds like it's your hard drive
Try to run a program called HDDlife ( http://hddlife.com/). I believe it can report performance, possibility of failure and other information.

 

Thanks, Zwaf. I downloaded the trial, seems like a pretty nifty little app. Have you used it before? I got a sort of strange result. It says my drive performance is at 100%, but the health status is at 41%... although I get the OK! mark. I dug deeper into the health attributes and it seems as though my drive's weakness lies in the 'Spin Retry Count'. Everything else seems to be okay. This is the description of that particular attribute:

I can pretty much understand that explanation, but I wonder why a weakness in this one area would drop my overall health meter to 41% when every other attribute is at 100%. Not sure how the app calculates the average (if it does an average at all)... any input? It would be appreciated.

 

It is coused by power managment. But it is normal for laptop drives, couse HDD spins down to save power and the value is high and it effect health status becouse it is compared to cold start of HDD.

 

OK, thanks. I guess I thought that sort of thing would be factored in, since I downloaded & installed the notebook version of the program... from reading their support knowledgebase though, it seems as though the notebook version is not quite perfected yet.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

 

getting that noise too, occasionally happens on my 5920 and is like a scratchy, squeaky noise. Odd stuff!

 

I'm still getting this problem - I'm going to do a full HDD check over the next week I think. Maybe starting with Error Check, HDTune maybe - I might have a look at HDDlife too. It's really quite worrying. I might think about getting back in touch with Acer before my warranty runs out later this year... it could be bad news for the future.

 

Same here and I really don't think it is hdd. I am quite sure it's some electric part of mainboard. Recently many laptops have this problem. For example Thinkpad T61p (notebookcheck.com review). I wonder if technical support could do something with this. Anyone tried?

 

I've e-mailed the Acer support and they didn't give me a single big of feedback, they just said that I should bring it in for repairs. I'll probably send it to them over the summer when I have more time.

Somebody on another forum suggested that the noise might be coming from the fan?

 

Hey guys, sorry for reviving this topic, But I think that the squeaky / scratching noise is coming from the HDD.

I've noticed something similar with older drives I've messed around with; the sound usually occurs at the start of spin-up. It’s the spindle motor resonating before it overcomes its inertia. It lasts about ½ a second though.

Could even be a lose drive mounting screw.

Or maybe it's the battery charging circuit? The inductors would emit a high frequency whine, but it's usually continuous.

 

I m sure it is not a battery problem. I have the same problem. I m using my laptop without battery and it happens at least once a week.

 

hold your laptop infront of the priest(smiley)and he will drive out the demon noise.


just a thought,
Phil

 

sounds like a hard drive issue to me... have you ran HDDlife to test it?

 

I'm getting the same strange noise on my Aspire 5920G. Has anyone came up with solution?

 

Hi
I have recently purchased this Laptop and I have heard noises. However my instinct was that it sounded like interfearance from mobile phone. That is the sound I hear and it is regular. Does not sound like harddrive sounds that I have heard in the pass.

 

Hi
I have tried the laptop on battery only and I do not get any sounds ISSUES until I power on.