Faint clicking whenever I perform a task... something to worry about?

[Bad^Hat]

Only just noticed this, so I'm not sure if it's on-going or just started happening, either way this computer is barely a week old (with the exception of a few older parts).

Basically whenever I'm doing something like scrolling or looking through a menu with the cursor I'll hear a faint clicking noise from somewhere in my case. Like the HDD loading noise but slightly fainter, and... clickier. It's possible that it's coming from the hard drive but I can't really pin-point it.

Just thought it was weird that I can only hear it when I'm actually doing something, it doesn't seem to happen when I'm just loading something normally (that makes the regular loading noise, and the HDD light on the case flashes, unlike the other noise).

Any help, or am I just being paranoid? =/

Edit - If it helps, the HDD is a brand new Western Digital Caviar 320GB 7200RPM 16M SATA II.

 

[CyberPitz]

I know I hear some buzz noise when I move my mouse when my speakers are turned up really high....but other than that, I don't know D:

 

[Bad^Hat]

Definitely not coming from any speakers. The only audio I have plugged in is my headphones, and I just tried it without em - same thing. And it's definitely coming from somewhere inside the case itself.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Sorry for bumping. I had written this off as nothing to worry about since noone replied, but it seems to have gotten worse and I'm getting a little concerned. Just tonight I noticed a bit of a dip in performance - things loading slower, and when I restarted it took atleast twice as long to load everything up once inside Windows (can't say if this is just temporary yet, only the last couple of hours). Then after I was asked to install something on Steam (Source SDK Base), I clicked install and it started making a louder, rapid scratching kind of noise for a few seconds. After that it was the same thing but louder for a little while, and now it's back to the how it was - just the clicking/scratching or whatever the hell it is, and only when I'm doing certain things.

Some things that seem to set it off - scrolling through web pages, opening certain menus on programs and rolling the cursor through them, using Steam (whenever the window's open I can hear it semi-frequently, and then rapidly if I do something in there), and the character screen on World of Warcraft. Don't ask me on that one, whenever I'm switching between characters and it stops to load for a second, so does the noise. But then it pipes back up again once the character is there and being animated on screen.

Blah. Any clues as to what I'm dealing with and what I should do about it, if anything? =/

 

[Naudian]

Strangest thing I've ever heard of :|

Only thing that comes to mind is that maybe the clicking is actually a zapping noise D:

 

[Bad^Hat]

Zapping?

That doesn't help with the worrying.

Edit - Just took off the side of the case and had a bit of a listen in. Couldn't pinpoint it very well, but it doesn't seem to be coming from the area of the hard drive, seems more like it's from the CPU or PSU or something over there. I also checked to see if any wires could have been getting clipped by fans or something, definitely no problems there.

Whatever it is, it seems to be reacting to what's on-screen. I had Insurgency open before and it changed into more of a whirring noise, and when I shifted an options window around the screen the noise would change in pitch... :|

Anyway, the performance seems to be back to normal, so I'm just gonna put that down to Steam being a system hog.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

It's probably just small seeks. Try emptying your temporary internet files, and run a checkdisk. Turn off indexing, as well.

 

[Evo]

Had a similar problem, and thought it was the HD, replaced it with a new Seagate but I still occasionally get the clicking noises, I figure it is the DVD drive...

Not sure what it may be though for you =/

Could try isolating the issue, put in an old HD/DVD drive to see if it is one of those?

 

[lePobz]

I used to have a pentium-II that was massively overclocked, and whenever I did something CPU-intensive, the TV reception on every TV in the house would just die... I thought it was funny but I bet the neighbours didnt! It also used to make a high-pitched noise whilst it was doing the intensive radiowave jamming effort too.

 

[Beerdude26]

Clicking or rattling from inside a hard drive often means it's singing its swan song. D:

 

[Ennui]

Yeah, I would go ahead and back-up whatever's important to be safe.

 

[DevgruSeal]

I had a clicking noise on one of the external hard-drives that was in use for a while.

If I recall correctly, it was overheating.

 

[Stigmata]

I had something similar. If I had headphones plugged into my audio jacks, I could hear a buzzing sound whenever my mouse pointer was moving. If I moved it just one pixel, I'd hear a single quick "bzt" sound. I don't know what it was but it's been gone for a couple months now and I don't know where it came from or where it went.

 

[Asus]

It's probably inductor noise. Usually you can't hear it (out of hearing range or happens too fast) but on some PCs you can . Current flows through them they create a magnetic field.
Having a hard drive click when you scroll a window doesn't sound right. It already loaded the file from the hard drive into RAM in order to use it. Or if you are viewing web pages then it never was on the hard drive.

But it's always good to have a backup.

 

[Fliko]

Make sure your HDs and DVD drives and PS and all that are mounted fairly well with screws!