Computer is Whining at Me?
 

My other computer behind me is whining and refusing to start up right now. The whining has been happening for a bit, but the latter is now occurring. It'll whine as long as power goes to the computer, but it will stop once the power button is pushed or the power strip is switched to off. I'll try to list as many things as I can remember about this computer's specs:

GeForce 6800 (ASUS I believe?)
SoundBlaster Live! 24 Bit
AMD 64 3200+ Processor
ASUS Motherboard (I currently can't figure out what it is from Newegg)
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Computer Case
1 GB RAM
Running Windows XP

I'm sorry if this isn't enough at the moment. I have found some similar problems, but none of them match mine.

Whine? Uhh... could you try to be more descriptive than that?
My first suspicion, however, is a fan or hardrive that is failing.

I'd actually think it's the PSU. Thankfully, they're easier (and cheaper) to replace than a video card/hard drive fan.

What I mean by whine is a high pitched noise. You know, like it would come from your ears instead of a PC (which is what I thought it was at first).

The PSU is one of the things that was mentioned. I may try that first.

The best thing to do is to open up the case and listen for the sound. If it's high pitched and doesn't sound like grinding, it won't be a HD. CPU/PSU fan would be more likely.

This same thing happened to me, earlier this week--it turned out to be a fan in my case buried behind my hard drives that was doing it, though it was incredibly sporadic about whining (I guess that's the fault of a sleeve bearing).

Anyways, if you have any small fans in your case, I'd suggest testing or replacing those before trying other things if you are unsure or unable to detect where the sound originates, as they're much cheaper than a new power supply is.

I think I know what you're talking about, especially the ear thing. Try connecting the bare minimum of stuff to your PC to make it run and try it. If it happens every time to try to feed it power, it's likely your PSU.

Mind did the same thing before croaking. Anyone know what causes it to make that noise? Electricity making it's components vibrate?

Oddly, the computer works when the side panel is taken off. The whining continues, but it starts up now. Very wierd!

Heat, maybe? You've basically given the computer far more cool air than what was available in the case, so maybe the PSU was overheating?

NO.

Opening the side panel does NOT give more cool air than you'd think. It can actually make your computer HOTTER, because the airflow is wrecked. Unless he's got a box fan blowing into the computer, it won't make much of a difference.

If his airflow is terrible, just opening the case would help. I should've made that clear when I first mentioned it, but eh. Again, it sounds like his airflow is pretty shitty inside the case, and it's causing something to happen to the PSU. Like others said before, that's probably the source of the instability.

it could easily be some resistance or something you're hearing. when i have my case open in my pc and i slow down my cpu fan, when i play 3d games, i can hear my video card making squeaking noises. it's actually pretty weird, and it's also documented for x800-based cards. however, it's pretty unnoticeable unless other fans are slowed way down.

No, what I was saying is that OPENING the side panel wrecks the airflow. Look at it this way: you have a 120mm fan (at best) moving... about 1 to 1 1/2 cubic feet of air (from a general guesstimate) when the case is closed. When you open the side panel, not only are you removing any fans that may have been on it, you're also making the other fans go from moving that relatively small amount of air to moving the ENTIRE room's air. Opening the side panel can only make the computer hotter, since what may have been sufficient for cooling the entire computer before may now only be moving air over half the parts at best.

I'm just saying that maybe his airflow is bad enough that the heat, for the most part, is staying in the case and when he pulls the panel off, it comes out of the computer.

If the computer works when you take your panel off, it is more than likely a heat issue.

The whining will usually come from either a bad Voltage regulation on a Power Supply, or a stuffed up fan motor.

In the case of a fan failure, it would explain both your heat AND whine problems... so that would be my first guess.

Oh and murdercrow, you are SO DAMN WRONG. Best way to keep your computer cool when you do not have extra fans or watercooling, is to lay it on its side, and take the side panel off. Reason being, warn air is less dense than cool air, and thus, is lighter. It naturally rises up and out of the case, thus helping the airflow.

It has to be the fan on the PSU. Why? I'm currently typing on the computer that has the problem. Luckily, there is software that came with one of the parts that is not detecting the fan from either the Case (a lie, because I can clearly see it running) and the PSU (which is not blowing any air out the back).

I'm currently backing up everything at the moment.

Dont need to backup. Clean/replace PSU.

Would cleaning actually have the fan run again? I might try that. Thanks.

Edit: I replaced the PSU with another one (400 watts instead of 450) and it seems to work a lot better. Very quiet, and now there's two lights on the front surrounding the USB that glow blue.

This PSU was from another case we bought originally for this rig. Problem is, when it shuts down, it shut down a little too well (I.E. Never turned back on). We guessed that there was something wrong with the case itself, and not the PSU. Guess our theory was right.