computer strange noise

[moppy]

Hi i hope someone can help, for the past 6 months or so now and again a noise similar to turning on a hoover comes from the HP tower, my son (who doesnt live in England ) says it needs a good clean as its probably full of dust, i have tried the suction on the hoover at the side vents but it doesnt do any good, do i have to take the outer casing off the tower then clean.Thank you for any help you can give me

[MarkRae]

The sound you're describing certainly sounds like the fan. This sits on top of the CPU (aka the "chip") and, as you might imagine, keeps it cool.

Computers can indeed get very dusty inside. You can purchase special "computer hoovers" for want of a better term to get rid of this, but most people just blow it away with a canister of compressed air. However, you will indeed have to open it up to do this.

If you are at all uneasy about this, I would suggest taking it to a local computer repair shop...

[moppy]

thank you both for your answers, i dont know if im confident enough to take the casing off

[MarkRae]

In which case, I would suggest that you use Google or Yell to find a local PC repair shop...

[Charlie911]

Just a thought. Is it the CD drive disc thingy (yes I'm very technical as you can tell) spinning round? Mine does that too but only for a few seconds. Dunno why it does it, never done any damage and been told its nothing to worry about.

As I said, just a thought

[mjwman]

My new HP does it. Especially lately on hot days watching video clips.

[Buenchico]

Charlie has a valid point. I've often found that a CD or DVD drive will 'go mad' for a while (with a noise exactly like a vacuum cleaner starting up) when first booting up. It's most likely to happen if a disk has been left in the drive.

If that's the case, your PC is probably looking for its boot-up instructions from a CD or DVD before looking at the hard drive. It's possible to disable this but I'd advise against it because it involves going into the BIOS. (If you're not confident about opening the case, you almost certainly won't want to be fiddling with the BIOS!). It's far simpler to make sure that you don't leave any disks in your PC's drives.

Chris