the mystery of those cpu load sounds

...at least a mystery to me. every computer i've owned, desktop and laptop, made small 'clicking' noises on high loads. on my laptop it occurs simultaneously with the blinking of the cylinder cpu load light if that's a hint.

it's not the cpu it comes from, but rather from another piece of hardware or quietly from the speakers - i don't know


perhaps one of you knows, and can clear this up for those of us endowed with less computer knowledge

and is there by chance a way to turn this sound off? maybe an option in bios?

thanks

 

hmm I thought the cylinder is hard drive activity. If it's that, you might be able to enable Automatic Acoustic Management for it. See if it is the case by copying a bunch of files.

 

it shld be the hdd u r referring to...

 

It is your Mechanical Hard Drive, if you are desperate to solve this noise then you could always purchase a Soild State Drive.

 

If it bothers you that much, yeah get an SSD.

 

good point guys. That's what it is... but I'd rather keep away from an SSD for a while because I don't think they're worth it yet.

Is there another option besides AAM because I access hard drive files rather frequently, or even more than I need - for example, as I type this text, the HD light is constantly showing activity even when there's nothing else going on... what could that be?

I hope that the specific 'ticking' sound I've been hearing all these years is not the HD itself! I would consider it a shame that this annoying pet peeve has not been remedied in over a decade! If perhaps it isn't the actual HDs making these sounds, there should be a way to mute the ticking noises yeah?

 

My god, how sensitive are your ears? I can sleep like a baby through the night with all three of my Seagate ES.2's running torrents.

 

I am pretty sure ive heard of an SSD or two producing audible sounds... to dogs mostly. My 250 WD can put out some really high pitched noises sounds almost like its scratching the hell out of itself but that is usually off even with the laptop on.

You can really get an idea of the hard drives noise by taking a really old drive apart and then actually using it lid off. All that clunking you hear is associated with the read heads moving back and forth rapidly to various locations. Its alot quiter these days but still present especially seems to get more audible with age.