computer ticking

Hello,
My pc recently started making a ticking noise and after searching the internet I have'nt seen a clear answer.

symptoms: It ticks in sync with the typing bar blink

It speeds up with the mouse scroll

As I write this, it is ticking very fast, I assume because of the
smilies icons are active.

It seems to be coming from the mobo.

I have:
checked for wires touching fans
bought and installed an independanty powered USB port, in case I was draining the mobo with plug ins
did the screwdriver to the component and ear method to eliminate psu,hard drive.
visually checked for arcs and capacitors bulging/leaking on mobo.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
HJunk

 

Greetings, hjunk, and welcome to MajorGeeks...

Wow - this should be fun.

Looks like you're fairly conversant with computer terms and with the hardware aspects of your machine. What type of video are you using? If it's a discrete card (AGP/PCI) and if you've also got an onboard video option, you might try switching temporarily to see if you get a change in symptoms. Same with the audio - try front vs. rear jacks, headphone jacks, anything to try to break the rhythm and give us some direction...

For that matter - do you have a spare mouse/keyboard?

I tell you, though - this sure sounds like a leaky capacitor...

 

Another quick question: from your description of the symptoms (and the lack of related symptoms) and from your checks, I'm tempted to rule out the hard drive 'Click of Death' - correct?

 

Hi,

Thanks for responding .

I followed your suggestions and had success on the final item when I disabled the video card ( Radeon HIS6950) driver to default windows display, no ticking.

I rolled back the AMD driver to the previous version and got the ticking noise agian.

I am not sure what this means?

 

If the symptoms persist when you roll back the driver, I would tend to lean towards a hardware issue - looks like you may be facing a decision: use onboard video, or grab another PCI card for troubleshooting.

Try this: power down, remove the Radeon, make sure there's no dust in the socket, contacts are clean, visually inspect the caps on the card, etc., then reinstall the card and check.

You might try looking in your BIOS setup, see if there are any options there for aperture size, etc., but I advise caution if you go that route...

 

I agree with calibans suggestions and would guess its dirt in the fan also.Its important to locate the exact spot of the ticking,you can do this with a kitchen roll cardboard tube to your ear and move it around different components.

 

i cleaned the video card and all connections, did'nt want to mess around with those bios settings.
Do you think it is a video card problem?

 

You have to find out where the clicking is coming from or we'll be guessing forever.

 

You're right, next step will be change out video card. I have been busy lately but will try to do that tonight and keep you all posted.