annoying clicking sound in my windows7 pc

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A constant steady clicking sound isn't good as that can point to the read/write heads arm slapping against the spindle inside the drive casing! Depending on age and wear of the drive or if you are now realizing a defect you should prepare a disaster recovery plan in case of the eventual drive failure!

Hopefully you still have a valid warranty inplace and are covered against defects since this is a very possible problem you will be faced with there. As a general rule hard drives should never be heard at all on a steady basis but run quietly.

To be honest, it sounds more like a sound event (open program for example) that is the source of the noise.

Have a look and listen through the Windows Sounds and disable that event (if that is the cause).

(right click on the volume icon on the task bar and select sounds.)

However, if it actually is h/ware - then something is indeed wrong.

Turn the volume down or mute that entirely and listen carefully to track the source. If you have the sound off and continue to hear the clicking sounds by getting your ear close as possible to the casing nearest to the drive that won't be good!

For any sounds assigned to functions or those in a program once you logoff and come back to the desktop that would end. If the clicking continues even following a full restart with the sound muted that would be pointing at the worst being a failing drive.

Hopefully that will be all that it turns out to be. But still keep a eye on it.

Since the laptop is new it may take awhile for the clicking to become more noticable if the drive is the problem. Once you start hearing a steady "tick...tick...tick...tick..." sound repeating itself over and over that will point at the drive.

Windows does have some low tone type wav files assigned to different things by default. If you have any number of short length wav files you can create your own custom sound theme for various things or simply assgn none to things you won't expect to be using to track it down.

One way to see if you can identify if it is a Windows sound file is to go into the Control Panel>Sound>sounds tab and click the test button for things like Start navigation and fax error being a short higher pitched metalic tone there. That would be the best way to see if this is an assigned sound or a problem.