Weird Sounds (M17x)

Hey guys and gals,

I just got my M17x yesterday and turn it on all excited. It starts making a noise that sounds like a loud double knock (i.e. KNOCK-KNOCK) then it sounds normal for 5-6 seconds and does it again.

What in the world is causing this? It is extremely annoying and makes me worry they shipped me a lemon which actually seems pretty common from reading over these forums.

My Computer:

Intel Core2 Extreme Quad QX9300 2.53GHz (12MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz 2 x 4096MB
SLI Dual 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce (NB10E-GTX1)
320GB 7,200RPM (xMB Cache) w/ Free Fall Protection

 

There are only a few moving parts in the whole rig.

1. The fans.
2. The hard drive(s).
3. The DVD drive.

Without knowing more, I can't help much. The hard drive will make a more subtle clicking noise if it's having problems. DVD drive? I would investigate that if I were you. You've got a hell of a machine there, please don't just send it back. Does it boot up and work fine besides the knock? Also, the reason you hear about all the 'lemons' is because no one ever creates a post to say 'my machine has been running great for a year now'. No one wants to hear that. Anyway, that's me talking. Get back to us when you've investigated a bit more.

 

Agreed. Removing the hard drive is pretty straight forward as well. The first thing I would try is starting the machine without the drive and see if you still get the noise. With the service cover off you'll also be able to hear the CPU fan better to see if that is possibly a culprit.

 

Thanks for the help. I took out the HD and then booted it up. I suppose luckily I did not hear the sound. Calling Dell to get a replacement HD. It is so ridiculous that they would ship a computer with a faulty hard drive.

Yes it was working fine besides for the knock. It also seemed to only make the noise while the computer was more or less idle or web surfing.

 

Was it your primary hard drive? Glad to see you found the problem. I've heard hard drives "click-click-click", but never "knock-knock-knock" Who's there? OK, anyway.

 

Yeah it was. After some more testing it seems to still do the knocking noise even while I'm playing games so it is not just an idle thing. Thanks for the help hopefully all will be well with the new HD.

 

I HATE downtime with my laptop. So here's what I would do. Go to your local gadget store and get yourself a new hard drive. They're pretty inexpensive. Use the disks that came with your comp to install Windows. When the Dell hard drive shows up, use it as spare storage.