Solved Processing light ends with a click

[Wowdude]

My computer is custom home built and is now approximately 4-5 years old. I have been upgrading it slightly every now and again when I have the money.

I have started playing TF2 again recently which strains my computer. However since last night my computer has started to click. The light on the front panel of the case will come on with high amounts of processing, as with most computers. I have noticed though that when the light goes off, a 'click' can be heard. I don't know whether it could be a problem with the motherboard or just a loose connection somewhere. But surely it shouldn't click?

This is even more concerning to the ear as the light goes on and off very quickly when playing games or using high resource programs as everytime the light goes off the click can be heard.

Any advice, ideas or suggestions as to what it could actually be and/or how I could stop it?

Thanks in advance

Wowdude

 

[Sub Styler]

Sounds like your hard disk is failing! Do not use it any futher!

The only thing you should use it for is now to backing up the data when you have a new drive.

These clicks will become more and more frequent untill soon the disk wont be detected by the BIOS!

This happened to my previous system that fits your description:

"My computer is custom home built and is now approximately 4-5 years old. I have been upgrading it slightly every now and again when I have the money."

I did not backup in time and lost all my music and documents (had to do my CV again)!

 

[Sub Styler]

funilly enough i used to play WoW aswell, it's such a massive install with so many patches and expansions also frequent use of the repair install tool really hammer your hard disk! I blamed wow for my hard drive failure.... (although it would have happened anyway but i'm pretty sure WoW accelerated it).

 

[Sub Styler]

Oh and it's more like the click is ending your processing light, there should be no problem with the surface of the disk so running scans wont help....

 

[Wowdude]

Oh my gosh really? Dam. i'm on the computer at the moment. University is just about to start so I kinda need to get this done asap. I have a 500Gb external harddrive (same size as my internal) and my internal isn't full so I will back-up my computer to the external HDD.

Thanks for the quick reply and yes I have been playing WoW for many years...since i've had this computer. The HDD has also taken a lot of thrashing from things like a lot of defrags, scanners, registry repair etc. My last HDD died not so long ago as well....maybe a need a SSD to play WoW?

 

[Sub Styler]

wow's loading time would certainly benfit from an SSD, but they don come cheap and arent essential. Glad you already have a means of backup! When my drive failed a few years back, my 120GB IDE was still going strong but my SATA150 (or SATA I) was only about 18months old and flopped.

 

[Wowdude]

Dammit, why are modern HDD so flimsy. I remember when I had my 1st built computer the 64Gb HDD never died. I'm sure I still have it somewhere isn't just too small in capacity to use. I'm uninstalling things at the moment to fit my Internal HDD contents to my Ex HDD and praying it doesn't die inbetween. I also use steam....another HDD thrasher with constant updates.

Thanks so much for your help. Been exactly what I needed and saving me losing my data! Lots of gold stars for you!!

I'll let you know how it goes.....as/when it goes.

 

[Sub Styler]

Programs can be re-installed! just backup your docs, savegame files, usefull stuff in the downloads folder etc, anything that can't just be re-installed. The key here is minimising usage, it only took a few days of light usage before my disk completely failed!

 

[Wowdude]

Hey there!

I've just changed over from my HDD to a new WD 1TB that came today. Installed Vista, then windows 7 over the top, loaded my disk image onto the HDD. No problems so far. The old HDD is still going though so I can still pick up the rest of the files I missed after I made the image.

Thanks again for the help. Saved my ass (and just as importantly my data!)

 

[Britton30]

Now that you have the system running as you like it with all software installed, make an image of it so as not to have to install Vista to upgrade to Windows 7 next time.
Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download
An image will let you be up and running in about 30-40 minutes.

 

[Wowdude]

How to change the HDD in "My Computer"

After loading an image of my OS onto my HDD it still shows the old HDD.

I have upgraded to a 1Tb HDD (as i said before) but for some reason, even though my computer picked it up andis using the HDD, in "My Computer" it still says I have my old 500Gb one (with the sizes of space left on the drive). Anyone how to update it?

Thanks

 

[Britton30]

Did you image your entire drive or just the data and OS? Have a look into Disk Management to see if the image program made a 500GB partition.

 

[Wowdude]

Hey thanks. Yeah the program made a 500Gb partition on the HDD so i have 400Gb+ sitting there not being used. The Disk Manager won't let me change the partition size (cus it's being used).


However I am very warey of Partition changing programs as i've known people use them and upon reboot and changing partition size, the program gave up and decided it couldn't do it. They had to wipe their HDD.

Any suggestions on a good (and free) program for partitioning that won't do this pls?

 

[Britton30]

Yes there is one which many people here use and recommend, Partition Wizard Bootable Disk. Here's a tutorial and a link for the download within.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93322-partition-wizard-use-bootable-cd.html#post805541
Keep your image handy in case you need to re-image again.
Here's a section for Macrium Reflect, perhaps you can make a new image before doing anything which will not create smaller partitions.
http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/43219-image-your-system-free-macrium-38.html#post414672

 

[Wowdude]

Ah excellent, nice one.

Used this software and didn't even need to make a disc. The software did it without even rebooting my computer, it just enlargened the partition. I think it's because the partition wasn't actually made by another program, more kind of what the computer was like beforehand. I don't know :sarc:

Excellent help and case can be closed (Finally)!

Cheers

 

[Britton30]

Cool glad to hear that! The reason I mentioned the bootable disk option is because Paragon will let you do almost anything with partitions that way.