Studio 17 beeping noises from inside

This is a very strange one , I have a Studio 17, and it has never had any kind of noises coming from the inside, however, in the past few weeks I have been hearing beeps that are coming from inside the laptop not from the speakers. Its a single beep, and does not have a pattern such as beep every 4 or 5 seconds it beeps when it feels like beeping, usually one short beep.

I called Dell, and the tech guy told me that beeping was " normal " and I should not be concerned over it. Can you believe that jerk? "beeping sounds from inside are normal " ? I dont think so.

I have tried to think of anything inside this thing that can beep or why I would be getting these beeps and I cant come up with a thing. Originally I thought it was possibly a CMOS battery going bad, but Dell says the battery wont make it beep, then I thought maybe its overheating, but then when I feel the laptop its' barely warm, so Im at a loss.

This beeping is intermittent, it will beep for a while, then stop, then later on or the next day it might beep again for a few hours then stop again.

Anyone have any suggestions on what could beep from inside the laptop? the sound seems to be right near where the hard drives are located if I put my ear to the touchpad area I think thats the area it originates in.

Ive never run into this problem on any computer, and I have owned over 8 of them over the years.

Thanks for any suggestions, or ideas. Im running Vista Ultimate 32 bit, and dont think Vista is the problem, and I've looked for any application running that could make beeps and cant see any.

Nicholas,

 

Not enough power?
My portable 120 GB Seagete makes same beep when It didn't have enough power.
By the way if you have Seagete - I have 120 and 500 both poratable and both makes different beep sounds, so It is typical for Seagate.

 

My 9400 has been making very random beeps as well. And now that you mention it bigdarkmad, It did start happening a couple months after replacing my HD with a new seagate. HHmmm

 

Thanks guys I wasnt sure about the hard drives, I have 2 in this thing, one is a Toshiba 5400 rpm, and the other I added is a new Western Digital, 7200 rpm, but never thought it would beep. It only does it once in a while then it stops.

Not enough power, thats very possible, but wouldnt I be noticing a performance drop while this beep is going on? I havent seen any slow down or any glitches such as freezing up or anything, and according to HWMonitor my temps are all great, the warmest is 44 C thats on the video. The hard drives are running about 35 C which is very good.

I'll probably have to make some DVD backups of these drives as it just might have a problem. I dont have Seagate in here, but Im sure Western Digitals can beep too if a Seagate can.

I'll have to investigate this further somehow.

 

It could be whining noise from the components around the CPU. That is for Centrino CPU's and Intel Core 2 quiet normal, thats why the tech guy says it is normal. My two Inspirons has the beeping noise and also a Toshiba with C2D-processor had the same problem.

Listen to the noise in this YouTube vid and tell if this is your sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErkhU2qK-fM&NR=1

 

Ive listened to the whine of CPU on youtube and that isnt what mine does. I took the bottom cover off of mine and carefully listened, and the sound or beeps are coming from the Western Digital hard drive. I put my ear right on it.

It sounds like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxZv6ROJFrg&feature=related

I ran Western Digital diagnostics and the drives pass with no problem but thats for bad sectors and such. Im thinking this is more of a mechanical noise that sounds exactly like a beep. No clicking noise that I can hear and thats good, because clicking would mean the drive is on its way out. It very well may be on its way too, I'll have to keep an eye on it.

UPDATE: The noise is definately in the Western Digital drive, although it sounds like a beep its actually a chirp, I put a stethescope to the drive and I listened to it, and its mechanical, probably the head touching the moving platter briefly and makes what sounds like a beep. Going to call Western Digital and see if I can get a replacement since its only 4 months old. Doesnt say much for Western Digital drives but they carry a 5 year warranty so we'll see what they say.

 

How about this... Western Digital says if the drive passes the SMART diagnostics test and its working its considered an OK drive and does not need replaced. Even though its chirping like sending morse code they say it isnt defective. lol... Time to look into a Toshiba or a Hitachi drive....


This West Digital is on its way out Im sure of it, and sad part is the drive is only a few months old. I'll just pull the rascal out and put in a new one..

 

Now that you mention it, my Studio 15 also makes a sustained chirping/squealing noise coming from around the WiFi/BT/HDD area...

Also it would seem that Dell got their diagnostics skills from Western Digital or vice versa as I called them up over my battery rapidly discharging and taking forever to charge.

This is what they said:

"It is normal for the battery to gain charge when connected to the power adapter and to lose charge over time with the machine running off of the battery."

Diagnostics :

Them : Does the battery charge.
Me: Yes.
Them : Does it lose charge?
Me: Yes.
Them : Then the battery is 100% fine as it gains and loses charge.

Oh well, this one is going back so I don't have to deal with its problems anymore. But I guess that would not be an option for you right?

 

That's odd; I tend to have much better luck with Western Digital drives than Hitachi. I have a WD 320GB 5400RPM in my Studio 1535, and it's dead silent, even though it's set to Performance mode in BIOS.

 

Well, my luck is getting better, I talked with a different tech guy at Western Digital, and he says if the drive is making those chirping sounds, I can get a replacement for it, so things are looking up . lol...

I've always liked Western Digital drives, Ive used many of them in the past, and out of all the drives I've owned which would be roughly about 20 in the last 15 years, I've only had 2 failures, one was a Maxtor, and one was a Hitachi. Both drives were in desktop pc's, and developed that dreaded clicking noise on boot up, and both got replaced with no problem, the warranty coverage was good on both. So if this drive keeps up this chirping, I'll just ask for a new one. I really like the speed and performance of the 7200 RPM drives over the 5400 RPM ones, I have noticed a major speed increase in how Vista boots up on this Studio 17, and how fast my programs open as well.

So, I might be replacing this drive soon after all...

 

Bleurgh, after having several portable WD HDDs fail very very early on in their life (maybe 4 or 5 of them) I will never go back. I now have maybe 8 Maxtor drives (which are now made by Seagate), and they work like a dream. I've also tested in HDTune and they provide better data transfer rates in all areas (vs one of the WD drives that sporadically works). Yup, I do use a lot of external drives; but then I have to deal with a lot of data transfers - it's no fun waiting for over 250GB of data to upload to an FTP site; it's faster to whack it on a drive and walk the 4 miles between sites if need be

Stick Seagate drives in my laptops too, got 7200 RPM ones in both my Sager and my Inspiron, and neither give me any problems.

But I guess like anything, some you win, some you lose. Doesn't mean somebody else wont win with something you lose with though.