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Subtle Ping Sound
Hello Dell Lovers
I have an 8400 - Got good mileage out of it.
Wondering what this faint Ping sound is? I hear it every so often when things are quiet. It resembles the SAME sound you hear when you press the power button the first time to power up.
I wonder if this is a sign of a logic board failure? It doesn't sound like a Hard Drive going bad...
But just to make sure, can you guys tell me where the prompt is to test the hard drive? I'm using Windows XP SP2
Thanx
Mike
fireberd
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October 29th, 2010 04:00
I would suspect that is either one of the cooling fans or possibly the hard drive, but more than likely one of the cooling fans. If you have never cleaned out the interior of the PC that would be a first step.
There are Dell diagnostics on the hard drive accessed by F12 at boot up. Or if you go to My Computer and RIGHT click on the "C" drive one of the options will be Properties (I think - I forgot exactly in XP) and it will have the Disk error checking and defrag options.
WWII Historian
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October 29th, 2010 17:00
Hello and thank you
I went to the XP Disk Drive Error Check - Ran it - No Errors detected
I always keep the internal parts free of dust
As I mentioned, this pinging is VERY similar to the first sound you hear when you press the power button to boot up - it's very subtle and only appears every now and then.
fireberd
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October 30th, 2010 04:00
I would still suspect one of the fans, either the power supply fan or the CPU fan.
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October 30th, 2010 16:00
"I would still suspect one of the fans"
Are you suggesting one of those fans is going bad?
BTW - I also see a tiny blinking GREEN LIght directly to the right of the power button. And there is a tiny icon nearby which looks like the symbol for a battery?
Is there a PRAM battery in this machine that needs to be replaced? Is that what the ping sound represents?
Thanx
Mike