Imagine you are sitting at your desk in your office typing away on an important email. Maybe to one of your potential clients explaining the benefits of your services and why they should choose your company to supply the services they need. Then all of a sudden your PC starts making some weird noises.
You scratch your head as you have never heard these noises before but you are not sure anymore whether it is a beep, click or spin sound?
It’s really got you worried though! You have heard horror stories about hard drive failures and data disasters before and this is the last thing you want to happen to you and your business!
Since you have not heard these noises before and you are not an IT expert you are confused and asking yourself:
- Is it a hard drive?
- Is it a cooling fan?
- Is it a power issue?
Slow down – first things first!
What is normal?
Noises from your computer are usually normal. If you hear the usual clicking, whirring or spinning sounds don’t worry these are usually fine.
Quick advice:
You should never ignore weird and unusual noises! Computers usually make some noises but if it is something new and especially if you hear a clunking sound you should take it seriously.
It may be that your hard drive is about to fail or another important computer component is about to give up on its life.
Since we are on the subject let us talk about the computer hard drive…
A hard drive usually makes some noises, such as a faint whirring noise, which is absolutely fine, but if you hear a harsher sound you must not ignore it. If you do not have an automated and monitored backup on your device than make sure you backup your data before the hard drive stops working or completely crashes. You are lucky if you have time to act before it is too late!
(However – SSDs – solid state drives – are silent! There are some signs the drive might fail, such as odd program behaviour but they can just fail, no warning. The only solution here is to have a robust backup.)
Blocked cooling fan
Cooling fans are designed to cool down the components of a computer, meaning that they can often be quite noisy. Any additional unusual noises may also come from a cooling fan if for some reason something inside the computer gets blocked with a build-up of dust or fluff. Computers can get dusty and you need to clean the dust out. This is best done with an air duster. If the fan needs to be replaced, your trusted computer guy can order a new fan and replace it quite quickly.
More advice
Always have an active, automated and monitored backup in place. Even if you are using Microsoft 365 to store your data you should really think about backing it up too.
Microsoft states that you are responsible for protecting the security of your data and identities and this means you should be using a third-party backup solution separate from their systems. You are responsible for your own data, not Microsoft.
We can provide state of the art automated backups with retention for Microsoft 365 and your devices.
Further advice
If in any doubts talk to us – we will identify the problem and advise on the correct solution in no time.
Contact me if you would like to discuss anything mentioned in this article kamila@octagontech.com or 01522 797520.
Kamila
p.s. Regarding the photo – Repair this!
A computer after extensive fire and water damage – The Speyside Centre 2016 https://speysidecentre.com/
(photo credit Clive https://www.clivecatton.co.uk/)
