Humming sound in computer

It started recently and pretty loud!! My machine has always been pretty quiet. How long exactly this has been happening, I don't know due to construction repairs outside.

Got to admit, never cleaned the machine inside, it's almost 5 years old. :-o Last year February when an IT tech put in a bigger HD I mentioned cleaning the machine and he said it wasn't necessary.

My question is: what can be the most likely causes?

Specs in my signature. If you need more info, please let me know what you need to know.

Thank you.

 

Well, pull off the side panel and grab an empty paper towel tube and use it like a stethoscope. Could be anything though probably a fan. Make sure to listen to your hard drive(s) too.

 

Listened very careful auggie with *your* stethoscope but can't differentiate the tones because by checking out the parts they all sound the same. Yet the humming I hear seems to be all over in the computer, not coming from any parts I checked. I'm definitely not a hardware person. Don't even know how many fans this machine has. :-o Cleaned the machine with compressed air but that didn't help either. Doesn't help either that I have hyperacusis (severe sound sensitivity). :cry

Gonna get a hardware tech coming over to check it out.....

 

Well, at 5 years old, I would look at the power supply first or even get looking into getting a new machine, the tech has gone real far since then in sound management.

 

Tbh it's probably something small that doesn't require attention, but it's always good idea to get any hardware people in to check it out, I myself also have a Dell(Dimension 5000), going into your profile and looking at your sig you have similar specs to mine except the processor and RAM as I have P4 3.0GHz and 1GBRAM while you have P4 2.8GHz and 2.5GBRAM

So yeah nothing to worry about imo but it is worth having a look/check inside and maybe measuring temps or something

 

Strange, as of the next day it's still humming but not as bad as before. Wondering if the cleaning helped a bit? So I'm holding off getting a hardware techie for now. They charge $90 per hr + tax, 1 hr minimum. Everest showing now a temp of 32 degrees Celsius (90 F), 3 degrees lower than usual before.

 

Well, it might have been the CPU fan making the noise as heat built up and the fan ran faster to compenstae. 32C is an excellent temp and perhaps too good. Temp sensors are not always right.

 

Yep and with your PC there won't be as many sensors for the CPU, GPU and so on as P4 doesn't have any temp sensors so it's difficult to tell temp. But yeah it could possibly be a fan or your HDD

 

Thanks guys. From what Everest tells me the Sensor Type is HDD, seems that the HD is the only one capable of being measured for temperature? Additionally it's a mini tower computer so my wild guess is that this may additionally to being a P4 Dell, influence cooling capability?

In spite of it being a mini tower, the case inside looks pretty empty to me. LOL Did I purchase empty space from Dell??? LOL No way I'm going to open the case again in a while as it's back breaking work for me and ain't no spring chicken anymore.