Hello everyone,
I'm having an issue with my desktop computer (HP Pavilion p6310y) that I'm hoping you can help me with.
To give you a brief background, I bought this computer last February. About a month after purchasing it, I had a third-party graphics card installed by a local technician.
The computer ran fine up until last month (January 2011). At that time, I got the "blue screen of death." I took it to the technician who previously installed the video card. He initially diagnosed the problem as a RAM issue, and then changed his assessment to it being a hard drive problem. But even after he bought and installed a new hard drive, the problem was not resolved.
At this point, I sent the computer to HP for repair (it was still under warranty). They replaced both the motherboard and hard drive (the tech swapped the original hard drive back in prior to me sending it to HP), and sent the computer back to me. However, the paperwork that they sent back indicated that the third-party video card was the source of my problems and they advised removing it.
Because I do not have the necessary expertise to remove the video card, I took it back to the local technician. He indicated to me that the video card was NOT the problem and he said that the computer was running just fine with it installed. At this time, he added the new hard drive (the one that he had me buy prior to the unit being shipped to HP) to the computer, so I now have two 1TB hard drives installed.
I was a little bit concerned about the video card, but decided to take the local technician's word that it was running okay.
About a week later, the computer fan started running very loudly every 20 minutes or so. It would run hard four about 60-90 seconds before returning to normal. I have SpeedFan installed and it indicated that "Fan1" was going from around 2000RPM to up to around 4500RPM. Once again, I called the local technician and asked him to look into this. While waiting for him to respond to me, I got online and discovered that the minimum power requirement for my video card was a 400watt power supply, but that my computer had only a 300watt power supply.
When the technician got back to me, I brought the power supply issue to his attention. At that time, he indicated that the best fix would be to remove the external video card and simply rely on the video card that is integrated into the computer's mother board. He came over to my house and removed the video card the next day.
Shortly after the technician departed, I began to notice an odd sound. It was not very loud (in fact, you don't really even notice it if you have other background noise) but it was definitely noticeable. I guess I would call the sound a "revving" noise. It is occurring every 30 seconds or so and it lasts only 1-2 seconds. The noise is occurring regardless of what I am doing on the computer, and even if it is just sitting idle.
My gut feeling is that the revving noise is coming from one of the computer fans. Once again, I ran Speedfan, and I am seeing that "Fan1" is occasionally going from around 1760RPM to around 1950RPM. That said, the readings that Speedfan is providing do no sync up exactly with the noise that I am hearing.
My next step was to remove the side panel from the computer to see if I could isolate where the noise is coming from. Even with my ear right up to the machine (with the panel removed), I honestly cannot tell from which component it is coming from. While I had the panel off, I did go ahead and spray some air into the computer to clean out the dust, as I've heard that if dust accumulates on the fans or in the heat sink, it can produce the "revving" effect that I'm experiencing. However, this has made no impact.
I've also kept an eye on the lights near the top of the tower, to see if they blink or flicker when I hear the noise (which to me, would indicate that the noise I'm hearing is the result of data being written to the hard drive). But there does not seem to be any correlation between the revving noise and the lights.
At this point, I'm at a loss as to what is producing the sound, or what to do about it. The sound itself is a minor inconvenience (though I'll say that hearing it every 30 seconds does prove to be quite annoying). But my fear is that it could be symptomatic of a larger issue, and I really don't want the computer crashing again.
I thought I would reach out to the TechSpot community to see if anyone can offer any advice on this issue. I really do not want to get the local technician involved again, as I just keep paying him money and much of it has been for naught (for instance, he is the one who spec'd the third-party video card even though my power supply did not support it, and he also had me buy a new hard drive, even though I did not need to do so).
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what my next step should be? Is there any surefire method for determining whether the sound is coming from the fan(s), the second hard drive, the power supply or some other component? If it is a fan issue, is it something that I might fix via the BIOS? If so, can anyone point me to any resources that would explain how to access the BIOS and what I would need to modify once I'm there?
Looking forward to your feedback. Thanks very much.
I'm having an issue with my desktop computer (HP Pavilion p6310y) that I'm hoping you can help me with.
To give you a brief background, I bought this computer last February. About a month after purchasing it, I had a third-party graphics card installed by a local technician.
The computer ran fine up until last month (January 2011). At that time, I got the "blue screen of death." I took it to the technician who previously installed the video card. He initially diagnosed the problem as a RAM issue, and then changed his assessment to it being a hard drive problem. But even after he bought and installed a new hard drive, the problem was not resolved.
At this point, I sent the computer to HP for repair (it was still under warranty). They replaced both the motherboard and hard drive (the tech swapped the original hard drive back in prior to me sending it to HP), and sent the computer back to me. However, the paperwork that they sent back indicated that the third-party video card was the source of my problems and they advised removing it.
Because I do not have the necessary expertise to remove the video card, I took it back to the local technician. He indicated to me that the video card was NOT the problem and he said that the computer was running just fine with it installed. At this time, he added the new hard drive (the one that he had me buy prior to the unit being shipped to HP) to the computer, so I now have two 1TB hard drives installed.
I was a little bit concerned about the video card, but decided to take the local technician's word that it was running okay.
About a week later, the computer fan started running very loudly every 20 minutes or so. It would run hard four about 60-90 seconds before returning to normal. I have SpeedFan installed and it indicated that "Fan1" was going from around 2000RPM to up to around 4500RPM. Once again, I called the local technician and asked him to look into this. While waiting for him to respond to me, I got online and discovered that the minimum power requirement for my video card was a 400watt power supply, but that my computer had only a 300watt power supply.
When the technician got back to me, I brought the power supply issue to his attention. At that time, he indicated that the best fix would be to remove the external video card and simply rely on the video card that is integrated into the computer's mother board. He came over to my house and removed the video card the next day.
Shortly after the technician departed, I began to notice an odd sound. It was not very loud (in fact, you don't really even notice it if you have other background noise) but it was definitely noticeable. I guess I would call the sound a "revving" noise. It is occurring every 30 seconds or so and it lasts only 1-2 seconds. The noise is occurring regardless of what I am doing on the computer, and even if it is just sitting idle.
My gut feeling is that the revving noise is coming from one of the computer fans. Once again, I ran Speedfan, and I am seeing that "Fan1" is occasionally going from around 1760RPM to around 1950RPM. That said, the readings that Speedfan is providing do no sync up exactly with the noise that I am hearing.
My next step was to remove the side panel from the computer to see if I could isolate where the noise is coming from. Even with my ear right up to the machine (with the panel removed), I honestly cannot tell from which component it is coming from. While I had the panel off, I did go ahead and spray some air into the computer to clean out the dust, as I've heard that if dust accumulates on the fans or in the heat sink, it can produce the "revving" effect that I'm experiencing. However, this has made no impact.
I've also kept an eye on the lights near the top of the tower, to see if they blink or flicker when I hear the noise (which to me, would indicate that the noise I'm hearing is the result of data being written to the hard drive). But there does not seem to be any correlation between the revving noise and the lights.
At this point, I'm at a loss as to what is producing the sound, or what to do about it. The sound itself is a minor inconvenience (though I'll say that hearing it every 30 seconds does prove to be quite annoying). But my fear is that it could be symptomatic of a larger issue, and I really don't want the computer crashing again.
I thought I would reach out to the TechSpot community to see if anyone can offer any advice on this issue. I really do not want to get the local technician involved again, as I just keep paying him money and much of it has been for naught (for instance, he is the one who spec'd the third-party video card even though my power supply did not support it, and he also had me buy a new hard drive, even though I did not need to do so).
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what my next step should be? Is there any surefire method for determining whether the sound is coming from the fan(s), the second hard drive, the power supply or some other component? If it is a fan issue, is it something that I might fix via the BIOS? If so, can anyone point me to any resources that would explain how to access the BIOS and what I would need to modify once I'm there?
Looking forward to your feedback. Thanks very much.
