Repetitive clicking sound coming from my desktop

Hardware
1

Alright, so usually I’d take the rig apart and handle this myself but it’s in one of those pain in the ass locations and it weighs a shit ton as naturally I live with a lot of people and we don’t have much space. I’ve actually hurt my back a number of times pulling it out but this sound is driving me crazy.

If I’m being honest with you, I have an idea of what it is but I just want to make sure. It sounds like one of my drives but I’ve heard the noise could also be a problem with the PSU. I have doubts about it being the PSU though and here’s why:

  1. The clicking happens rapidly and loudly as the system starts and then goes away after Windows boots
  2. I suspect the sound would also be accompanied by coil whine… I don’t hear that.
  3. It’s an EVGA G2. I’ve never read of one failing… But it happens.

Here’s why I believe it’s a drive:

  1. CDI doesn’t display the drive
  2. Windows partition manager doesn’t show the drive
  3. It makes sense that when the system starts there would be a clicking sound as that’s when the drives rotate to the speeds they operate at.

I feel stupid for even making a post about it but the clicking itself is really fast… And it just doesn’t sound like a hard drive does when it fails. Usually the clicks are more varied…

If anyone is interested the suspected drive is a 500gb Hitachi that runs at 7200 rpm.

It’s probably the drive… But for my back’s sake I just wanted to ask if anyone has ever had experience with this.

Either way it sucks lol

2

Check all your fans and also is the Hitachi the boot drive? If not just unplug it and see if the sound persists.

If you want try rolling up a piece of paper into a tube put it to your ear so you can pin point where the sound is coming from better (actually works in my experience lol).

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Thanks for the suggestion! Luckily, the Hitachi was only used for temporary projects and nothing special. I did have my kernel source there but that’s backed up on Git. The drive isn’t anything too critical however.

4

Applied your advice and it’s almost certainly the drive. I’ll be removing it when I get hone from school today. I’ll use the opportunity to install the copy of GTA I have floating around…

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