annoying clicking sound in my windows7 pc

[admirer]

i recently got this sony vaio with windows 7 home premium. i have noticed a annoying problem from yesterday. i keep getting the clicking sound that comes when you open a windows explorer folder even if i am not opening any folder. yesterday it was there, today morning it was nt there, now again i am getting it from last half an hour. it keeps coming like every 20 sec. why so? what to do? please help..

i know i can shut the sound off by going to control panel, but that way the problem which causing this wont go away..

 

[Qdos]

It could well be the sound of the hard drive parking its heads which occurs when notebook power management tries to power down a drive to save energy. I had this happen on my Asus netbook, and it is annoying as hell...

The solution I found was this...

 

[Night Hawk]

Hello admirer Welcome to the Se7en Forums!

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.

 

[smarteyeball]

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.

 

[Qdos]

Some hard disks, and even SSD's, can make this noise due to some notebooks rather poor power management implementation - it doesn't mean there's didly squat wrong with the data device.

I agree regards system sounds, there is a pop that can occur on navigation to a new window or website, but what the OP's said kinda sounds more mechanical to me

 

[Night Hawk]

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.

 

[admirer]

thanks for the quick feedback guys. the sound is totally similar to the one that comes when you click on explorer folders or internet explorer. and it can be heard nicely, dont have to put effort to hear. and clicks only once and goes away and then again i hear after a min or 30 sec like that. i restarted the pc and the sound went away. same thing happened yesterday also, it went away after restart. its a 10 day old pc and i think its not a hardrive issue, bcoz its the sound that windows makes, its not a sound that comes from metal clicking, the two sound are distinctly different right? i was using firefox mainly when it was coming last.. not sure what program or what makes this to keep coming...!

 

[Night Hawk]

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.

 

[Ambra4]

Just do the following: -

Control Panel – Sound – Click Sound Tag – Select Sound Scheme – No Sound and

[FONT=&quot]“Save As Default” Click OK[/FONT]

 

[admirer]

i m thinking to change the explorer clicking sound from the default one to another one.. could anyone pls tell how to do that in windows7?

 

[Night Hawk]

All the Windows sound files(.wav files) are located in "C:\Windows\Media". Over the years I've collected numerous wav files sometimes on cds sold for customizing the different functions like a dog bark for a menu popping up or "aaawwwww...." sound for minimizing a window! :roflmao:

If you look around for custom wav files or Windows sound files you will find different sites for downloading different wavs for different things even movies! WAV Files - The Marx Brothers

Once downloaded and you check to make sure the files are good you simply copy them into the media folder and browse for each sound. From there you can save a custom sound theme.

One other thing to note is that generally WMP set as the default player when first finishing up a fresh install of Windows to see all the wavs added into the library.