There are four or five possibilities for the source of loud noises from the inside of the computer; the technicians must know which item is the problem in order to send out a service call. For the fans, please check and see if one specific one is causing the noise. For the hard drive and CDROM/DVDROM drive, you should open the side of the case and power on the machine and see if the noise can be pinpointed.

1. The power supply fan -- this fan is located on the back of the machine at the top. If this fan were at fault, the power supply would need to be replaced.
   
   
2. The chassis fan -- this is located directly beneath the power supply fan (on some cases this fan is not applicable). This fan has a separate part number and can be replaced independently.
   
   
3. The video card fan (if applicable) -- this is mounted directly on the video card, located within the AGP expansion slot. The video card may need to be replaced if a separate fan part is not available.
   
   
4. The hard drive -- located beneath the floppy drive, in some cases mounted vertically against the front bezel plate. If this is the source of the noise, BACKUP YOUR VITAL DATA IMMEDIATELY, and the drive will need to be replaced.
   
   
5. The CDROM/DVDROM drive -- With the 8x drives and up, very small impurities in the media can cause vibration and wobbling when using a CD. Print that is thicker on one half of the CD than the other or imbalances caused by the presence of impurities in the manufacturing process of the actual disk can cause the CD to become unbalanced while spinning at high speeds. This is usually not indicative of hardware failure; however, if the noise worsens, or you begin to have difficulty reading any type of disc, you may want to consider having it replaced.

Message Edited by DELL-Cody on 05-07-2004 09:57 AM