Technical Problems

My computer's making an odd buzzing noise; got an appointment to have it checked out at 7PM but I warn you it might stop functioning at any moment, leaving the blog post-less for a little while.

Comments

Probably just a fan going a little cockeyed. Or a hornet infestation. Either or.

Posted by grytpype | October 13, 2006 11:33 AM

Second the fan thing. I had one machine for which that problem could be corrected by hitting it sharply on the side...which is probably not advice I'd recommend for anyone else. If you're into DIY stuff, CPU fans can be replaced pretty easily for most computers (2 screws, no fancy mount), but depending on your warranty, some companies frown on you changing out parts on them.

Posted by jfaberuiuc | October 13, 2006 11:59 AM

Same thing happened to my Accord. It's the alternator.

Posted by MattF | October 13, 2006 12:30 PM

video card fans seem to flake-out on me more often than they should. they get off-balance and start buzzing.

Posted by cleek | October 13, 2006 12:31 PM

Get a Mac.

Posted by ogged | October 13, 2006 12:40 PM

The most likely culprit is a fan. There are a bunch in most PC's - several venting the case, one or two venting the power supply, and sometimes one cooling the CPU. The fan can go bad, or a loose wire or some crud can get stuck in it. If the latter, a vacuum cleaner might help. Also a possible source of the noise, but much less likely, is a disc drive. If its the disc drive, it will not be long for this world, so you need to back up its contents immediately. There are a number of online backup services that work well.

Posted by Alan | October 13, 2006 1:34 PM

Almost certainly a fan bearing slipping. And this isn't the sort of thing that will resolve itself permanently (although it may be very intermittent). It sucks, but as soon as you can replicate the problem in front of an Apple employee (it'll no doubt magically go away the first time you try), you ought to send it in for warranty service. My coworker's macbook pro fan just died completely...

Posted by tom | October 13, 2006 1:34 PM

Could be your hard drive. That happened to me early this year. If you haven't already, back up your data pronto.

Posted by Matt | October 13, 2006 2:30 PM

Just as Tom predicted, the problem has now gone away so I won't be able to get it fixed...

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | October 13, 2006 4:48 PM

It could be that you have unopened email with a lot of "Z"s in them.

Posted by Njorl | October 13, 2006 4:59 PM

"Anything that goes away by itself will come back by itself."

Posted by MattF | October 14, 2006 8:22 AM