Laptop making low grinding noise while scrolling

Berkey · 18 Sep 2014

So recently my laptop seems to be making a low grinding noise, more like the old grinding noise computers use to make when they we loading back in the day, but the thing is it only happens when I scroll up or down on any program, be it chrome, word you name it. It isn't always consistent, sometimes it will be constant as I scroll, or only in short bursts and strange enough, for one instance I was over at ESPN and wasn't even moving the page, but there was a element that kept swiping from one article headline to another and my laptop with grind for the 1 second it took to slide headlines.

There hasn't been any performance issues or negative effects as far as I can tell, but I thought I'd ask around as see if it's perhaps a perquisite to an upcoming one. Anyone experience anything similar?

rvcjew · 19 Sep 2014

Sounds like coil whine does it happen if you bring up nothing but a black screen on the browser and move your mouse around over it quickly? How old is the laptop?

EDIT: sorry if its grinding might be hard drive not power related at all. Though you have an SSD correct?

TVeblen · 19 Sep 2014

Does the sound come from inside the laptop or through the speakers?
Use a cardboard tube held to your ear to pinpoint the location of the sound.

That "loading sound" was the floppy disk drive sound in my mind. Sort of an err-err---err err sound.
If that is so it could be your optical drive. Try opening the tray and leaving it open.

If it comes from the speakers then it could be radio interference. Cross talk between the touchpad and the audio.
That could be a driver issue.

Berkey · 20 Sep 2014

Placing my ear on the bottom side on the laptop, near the hard drive and where the ram is installed, i can hear the sound very clearly and it also sounds like faint scratching noise. I have an SSD, so I'll be bummed if it's the cause, but it sounds like it's in that area.

Berkey · 20 Sep 2014

So here is a test I ran with Crystaldisk to check the health of the SSD in general, I mean it;s only 8 months old at most. The laptop is a Dell Latitude from 2011 I believe, not much wear and tear other than average office work, but I popped the HDD and Ram out and replaced them. Nothing seems to come from the speakers so perhaps it something else? All joking aside it honestly sound like an old S.O.S. morse code when you listen closely. It's so strange like I said,if you go to ESPN theres a small rectangular sliding element that shows other stories and each time it swipes the grind occurs, but when it isn't moving no grind. Also when I open another tab (like this one I'm typing in for instance) the ESPN page is still open in the other tab, but the grinding does not occur, only when I view the page.

I also use a Ramdisk for my temporary internet files so I'm not sure if there's any correlation with that as well

rvcjew · 20 Sep 2014

Looks like mine so unless you have freezing occurring prob not the ssd. Occurring at swipes ect leads me to power draw or gpu whine.

TVeblen · 20 Sep 2014

The are no moving parts in an SSD so I can't imagine how and sound can be coming from there or the RAM.
What can be making that kind of noise is a mystery to me. Unless there is a motherboard speaker. Haven't seen one of those on a laptop. In any event, why the motherboard would be beeping (grinding) is also very unusual.