The noise is driving me nuts. It rattles and ticks, and sounds like it’s about to fail. It’s just a few months old. I pulled the cooler assembly off, and removed the fan, and replaced it with an older one. I kept the heat sink, because the older one was about half the size and cooling capacity. But the old fan makes similar noises. I’ll go buy a new one at Fry’s, but I wonder if something else is going on.
[Update a while later]
OK, it’s not the fan. I stopped it momentarily, and there was no change. The question is: What is it? I can’t figure out exactly where it’s coming from. I only have one physical hard drive hooked up, and it’s not in the case.
[Update a while later]
OK, I changed power supplies. It’s better, though the noise is still there, and it’s not coming from the power supply. Still can’t quite isolate it. It’s now more of a steady ticking. It was doing it at 2 Hz or so, and now sounds like maybe 10, and not as loud.
[Update a while later]
This makes me wish I had a stethoscope.
[Sunday-afternoon update]
OK, got a stethoscope. The sound is not coming from anywhere or anything on the motherboard. I only hear it when I touch the case itself, and it seems to be being transferred through the metal. Still no clear where it’s coming from.
[Bumped]
[Update a while later]
I picked the case up off the desk, and the sound changed slightly. I set it back down, and it’s changed a little again. But whatever was rattling is still rattling. I feel like I may have to pull the board and reinstall. Part of the problem is that the front edge of the board doesn’t have much support, due to configuration.
[Monday-morning update]
OK, when I push the case away from the motherboard, it gets a little quieter.
[Early afternoon update]
OK, starting to think it is supernatural. I tried recording it, so people could hear what I’m talking about, but nothing came out. It was like that old tape in The Sixth Sense. But I upped the mike gain, and aimed it better (it’s my headset, which is pretty directional), and now you can hear it, if you crank up speakers. It’s about a 3Hz resonance.
[Wednesday-afternoon update]
I FOUND IT!
There is a huge case fan in the front that I had previously been unaware existed. It turned out to be impossible to R&R, due to being trapped behind a riveted drive cage. So I just unplugged it. The bad news is that I now know how loud my PSU and CPU fans are. But it’s still a huge improvement. White noise instead of rattling.
[Bumped]