"Screaming" Hard Drive ??

billt460

billt460

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I'm running a Dell Inspiron desktop with Windows 7. Every now and then my hard drive will, "take off" and really start revving. It sounds like a turboprop spooling up when they take the prop out of feather.

It doesn't happen on any particular website or file. It could be any, including this one. Then after a minute or so it slows down. This has happened on my wife's computer as well. And most all of them that I have had over the years. What causes this, and what is happening when it does?

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but about every month or so I'll be on the Internet, (again here, there, or most anywhere), and I'll get the dreaded "blue screen of death". And it will go into, "Crash Dump".

This lasts for about a minute, then it prompts me to, "Start Windows Normally" which I do. It then reboots and everything is fine. Just like Serve Pro, it's like it never happened. I suspect it might be some type of virus, I don't know. But it doesn't damage or lose anything when this happens. Has anyone else had this happen on their PC?
 
I'd back up my data and start thinking about a new hard drive. There is software to check them, but I have a feeling you're going to be replacing them soon.
 
It's not the hard drive, it's one of the fans. Use canned air to blow it out from both directions.

Bluescreens can be caused by lots of things. Since it's a Dell, hit the F12 at power-up to bring up the pre-boot menu and choose run diagnostics to make sure it's not a hardware issue.

Run a command prompt as administrator and run both of these commands:

sfc /scannow
chkdsk c: /f (say yes then reboot)

Update your virus scanner and run a full scan.

And please get rid of Windows 7. You can still upgrade to 10 for free, and 10 is still getting updates into next year.
 
I thought hard drives spin at a fixed speed. More likely a fan changing speed depending on temperature inside the computer. I'm running a Dell Optiplex with W7 and have switched to a SSD years ago. They are pretty cheap now. Under $100 for 1 TB. And I have no problems with W7.
 
A fan sounds more plausible. I didn't know they have a variable operating speed. I thought they were just "ON" all the time.

Also, do they even sell desktops anymore?
 
Bottom_Feeder said:
It's not the hard drive, it's one of the fans. Use canned air to blow it out from both directions.

Bluescreens can be caused by lots of things. Since it's a Dell, hit the F12 at power-up to bring up the pre-boot menu and choose run diagnostics to make sure it's not a hardware issue.

Run a command prompt as administrator and run both of these commands:

sfc /scannow
chkdsk c: /f (say yes then reboot)

Update your virus scanner and run a full scan.

And please get rid of Windows 7. You can still upgrade to 10 for free, and 10 is still getting updates into next year.
Click to expand...
I know just enough about these things to be dangerous. So.... I hit the power button, and then right away hit / hold the F12 button? Don't I have to wait until the keyboard comes on line? My keyboard is a Logitech, and it has illuminated keys. And they don't come on for several seconds after I hit the power button.
 
I’m no computer guy, but I really recommend a SSD.

An SSD is a great upgrade. Makes your machine significantly faster, removes the possibility of mechanical drive failure.

Samsung includes migration software with the drive, that makes it as easy as following the prompts, to move everything over to the new drive.

If you can change your own oil, you can handle the mechanical part of the installation.
 
billt460 said:
Every now and then my hard drive will, "take off" and really start revving.
Click to expand...
hard drive platters can only run at the speed they are designed to run, such as 7200 RPMs. If they run any faster or slower, they will not be able to read or write data and your OS will crash. It's possible that you have variable speed cooling fans that are changing speed.
 
billt460 said:
I know just enough about these things to be dangerous. So.... I hit the power button, and then right away hit / hold the F12 button? Don't I have to wait until the keyboard comes on line? My keyboard is a Logitech, and it has illuminated keys. And they don't come on for several seconds after I hit the power button.
Click to expand...
Yes, restart, give it a second or two, then hit F12 a few times when the Dell logo comes up. Don't hammer it, and don't press and hold it. You should see the boot menu come up and the diagnostics will be one of the choices. If it goes into Windows, reboot and try again. Sometimes a full shutdown then power-up takes longer to POST and will give you a larger window of time to hit F12 and have it register. Keyboard illumination should not be a visual queue that the computer recognizes it. It should work.

The short high-level diagnostic should begin to run immediately. When it's done and if doesn't find anything, it'll ask if you want to run the long diagnostic. Might as well say yes and let it do so but it may take some time especially if it has a spinning hard drive, and if it came with Windows 7 it most likely does.

What model Inspiron desktop?
 
That's your Windows 7 product key, has nothing to do with the Dell hardware.

It should have a 7-digit service tag sticker on the back. But should also have a model number somewhere on the front.
 
billt460 said:
I'm not sure of the model. I ran the long Product Key number, but came up with nothing on Dell's website. (Deleted by mod).

Manufacturing date was 6/2014. (10 years old). Intel Core i7 Processor Windows 7 Premium.
Click to expand...

Probably a 3847, one of the most popular desktops of that time. I still have clients that use those too. With it being a 10 year old computer there's a few things that can help.

1.) That's the fan you're hearing. There should be two fans, one for the CPU heatsink and one at the rear as an exhaust fan. The CPU heatsink could be filled with dust. Very common; especially if never cleaned before. Compressed air will help like stated in another post.

2.) If that doesn't help, the next issue could be the thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink. This will require removal of the heatsink to reapply the paste but you'll need to buy some. It's a very easy process though, if you're feeling up for it.

3.) BSOD could be a dying HDD or corrupted files. Not uncommon for a computer that old. Could use a fresh install if you decide to not get a new computer.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
That's certainly worth fixing if the drive ends up being bad, but you're not there yet.

sfc and chkdsk can fix lots of Windows weirdness. They will always find something wrong and make repairs, and if you're lucky, that may be the end of it. But that has nothing to do with the noise issue of course.
 
billt460 said:
I found it. It's a Dell XPS 8700 Core i7 3.6 GHz - HDD 1 TB RAM 12 GB
Click to expand...
Fan speed issue may be addressed in a BIOS update. You will have a Dell Service Tag #, use that on the Dell website:
Drivers & Downloads | Dell US

But, as Pew noted, check to make sure the heatsink isn't caked with dust first before you start doing BIOS updates.
 
A few things:

1) It is an OLD computer. HDD are designed usually with 5 years of continuous running life and anything beyond that is a roll of dice. It may be a good drive, it may not be. I think you should start backing up the data and check the SMART value to see if the reassigned sectors (grown bad sector) is increasing and is time to replace it, or use it for archiving only.

2) As others said, even the cheapest slowest SSD would be a significant upgrade to your HDD. It is going to be better than a CPU upgrade. Due to the elimination of seek and rotational latency (mechanical, in the 12-22ms range) with just flash memory access (in the 100us latency range, like replacing a red light that's 100x longer than a stop sign with a stop sign).

3) Fan wears out, you will find out after you upgrade from HDD to SSD.

4) HDD could change spinning speed, but that's usually laptop drive instead of desktop drive, for power consumption reason. It is not good for performance and it is hard to design for (imagine a kite that fly in a much higher range of wind speed being less precise in fly height), and therefore not as dense or cheap to make.
 
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