Noise from tower.

[trish432]

This might sound stupid,but my daughter rang earlier, she put the phone near to her tower for me to listen. There was a sound of a police siren coming from the tower, I listened for about ten minutes and it was still going on.
She`s just texted to say it`s ok now, but her daughter`s told her it was happening yesterday as well.
I wonder if anyone has any idea what could be causing it.

[snagged]

Police siren? WTF?

Prob. just the fan(s) if the comp had been on all day... due to the heat/humidity of the last few days.

[trish432]

I wondered about that, like i say I only listened over the phone, but it was very loud and sounded just like a police car rushing to a crime scene. (That`s if they still do that nowadays)

[snagged]

Maybe it was the police... does your daughter hide her 'Class A' substances in there lol.

[Velvetee]

What do you mean her tower? Is she like Rapunzel?

[trish432]

I expected some funny replies,but thought there might be some serious ones too, Ah well, going to bed now, I `ll check again in the morning.

[Ethel]

It could be her antivirus or antispyware alerting her,

[spheric]

A computer usually only makes noise from a few places

1) The speakers (*evil grin*)
2) The Fans
3) The optical Drives
4) The hard disk (rarely loudly)

If its the speakers, then your daughter simply needs to exit whatever program it is that is making the noise (if its antivirus/antimalware then she needs to take care of whatever its complaining about)

If its the fans, a clean-out of the dirt may help, but noisy fans should be replaced.

An optical drive could make noise because of a badly shaped CD or DVD, or because its screwed in too tightly or too loosely (can be further reduced with rubber mounting kits)

If a hard drive is making a loud noise, then panic, its about to (or already has) fail(ed)

[Buenchico]

Some PCs have a built-in siren to alert the user to the fact the the CPU temperature is too high.

If that's what's causing the sound you're hearing it could simply be that your daughter is using the PC in too confined a space, and the air vents are blocked. (A friend of mine had some very strange things happening with her PC. I fixed the problems by simply removing the two bar towels she'd got draped over the top of the tower!).

Alternatively, it could indicate that the fan has packed up. (Get your daughter to listen for the usual gentle whirring noise that PCs make. If it's not present, the fan's dead. They only cost a few pounds to replace).

Chris

[fo3nix]

I think Buenchico's on the money.

The computers we have at work have a similar noise, if the CPU overheats.

1) Turn it off, and leave 30mins or so to cool down.

2) (More long term fix.) Clean dust from the fans and grills on the computer, and ideally make sure it's in a location that doesn't block it from drafts of air.

[trish432]

Thank you all, for your replies. My grandaughter rarely switches the computer off, she was burning a dvd, yesterday, whilst this strange sound was going on, so maybe it could have been a badly shaped dvd.
I`ll tell her to check if the fan is running, check location of tower and give it a clean.