[JorgeA]

Hi,

Last night I was running Windows Defender when, all of a sudden, a very odd sound came from inside the computer case. The best way I can describe it is that it sounded like a rubber band being plucked, with a metallic tinge to it. It started strong and then lingered for several seconds.

I was also on a Web forum at the time. When I tried to open a new browser tab, I noticed that it was awfully slow. Eventually the tab opened, but in the meantime I became unable to change tabs, scroll through the current page, or launch new programs. The system slowed down to a crawl, and then froze up completely except for the cursor, which I could still move around but to no effect. Hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del brought up the screen to either shut down or open Task Manager. I told it to open the Task Manager, but it seemed to just sit there. Hitting the three-key combo again didn't do anything the next time, and I ended up power-cycling the computer.

When I rebooted, it loaded Windows slowly, although then everything seemed to work OK. A complete PC-Doctor checkup revealed no hardware problems. Then I rebooted, ran SpinRite, and it too reported things to be hunky-dory. Finally, at 4 AM I went back into Windows, started Defender once more, and went to bed wondering what things would look like in the morning.

Well, here I am typing on the PC in question, and all appears to be well...

I thought that maybe one of the RAM modules may have popped out, but the computer is still reporting the right amount of memory. I'll be opening up the case to look around.

Any ideas as to what might have caused that sound? Note that it came from the inside of the PC case, and not from the speakers. It was a mechanical sound, not a digital one.

--JorgeA

[allen2]

It could be a fan (most likely the cpu fan if it is a fan). Maybe something got stuck in it doing the noise.

[JorgeA]

allen2, on 04 January 2012 - 01:22 PM, said:

It could be a fan (most likely the cpu fan if it is a fan). Maybe something got stuck in it doing the noise.

allen2,

Oh, interesting! Hadn't thought of that possibility. I'll go inside and take a look.

Could something stuck in the fan cause the system to slow to a crawl? (Maybe from overheating??)

Thanks for the idea.

--JorgeA

[nitroshift]

Yes, overheating DOES slow your computer down to a halt.



nitroshift

[Tripredacus]

On some motherboards, chipset heatsinks are held in place by metal braces, but those are held down by plastic clips. Check to see if any of your heatsinks are loose too.