Laptop Problems

[Midcest]

Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 15' M5030 and just got it recently like a month ago well it just start making a squeal noise when i have sound on and even louder if i open my hard drive can some one help me out

[technical.angel]

Okay, so if it makes the sound when you have sound turned on, does that mean if you have sound muted, or not playing anything, there is no noise?

and please clarify "open my hard drive". Do you mean, opening your C drive?

[draggar]

Only three items in most laptops can make audible noise most of the time:

Speakers - this can easily be troubleshot by muting them or turning down the volume. Disabling the sound card can also trouble shoot it.

Hard drive - loud clicking most of the time. The only way I can think of it squealing is if one of the heads is craping along the platter all the time, which would be VERY VERY VERY VERY bad. Get the drive replaced asap and swap your data over before it's completely shot.

Fan - the most likely candidate for loud squealing. The ball bearings can wear down and start to not roll properly, like an oscillating fan when it starts to make noise. You can try cleaning out the fan but that may or may not help. Best course of action is to get the fan replaced. While it is not as critical as the hard drive it's not something you want to ignore - when the fan goes the laptop can easily overheat (especially since there is little room for air circulation in laptops).

Edit: I thought of a 4th component - an optical (CD / DVD) or floppy drive since they also have moving parts but I've never heard of them making a squealing noise.

[roothorick]

My money's on misconfigured soundcard. Play with the mixer; it'll probably get louder or quieter, or may go away entirely, by muting certain channels. Microphone is the biggest offender, but mute anything you're not using (hint: if you don't have anything plugged in, Wave and MIDI/music should be the only things unmuted).

If you're on Vista/7, you'll probably need to instead go to the Sound control panel and disable inputs in the Recording tab.