# Strange vibrating noise from laptop...



## jamie6778 (Sep 29, 2004)

I have an HP Pavillian ze5500 laptop that I just purchased in February. Two days ago, it started making a loud vibrating noise, after being on for a little while. I was in class at the time and everyone in the class could hear it and turned around. Later that night it did it again and after about an hour, got faster and louder until a black screen popped up, saying something aobut dumping physical memory and then teh comptuer restarted. I couldnt' read anythng else on the screen b/c it turned off. 

Yesterday, I called HP tech support and they had me go through some scan disks on the hard drive b/c that's wah they thought it was. The computer didn't make the noise the whole 2 hours I was on the phone with them. The scan disk came up ok and we did a few other utilities. About 20 mins after I got off teh phone with them it started up again so I called back. The girl could hear the noise and seemed shocked that it was my computer and told me to just turn it right off. She came back and said they thought it was the fan and I would have to send it in to be serviced. I explained that I have to have my computer for school and I have finals coming up so she said my only other option woudl be to pay to have it repaired. She mentioned that the first thing they would do is used compressed air to clean it out. I decided to try that myself first but soon afterwards, it started the noise again. This time after a little while, a blue screen came on with teh same dumping physical memory message and the computer restarted. At this point I just turned it off and left it alone. 

What could be causing these problems? When the noise starts, teh computer is not warm so its not overheating. When you turn it off, the noise grinds to a halt, but its not the fans because they aren't moving while its grinding to a halt. (You can see them through the vents) Please help! I just need to know if its the fan, hard drive or something else so I know what to do. If its the fan, I'll have to send it away. If its teh hard drive, they'll just send a new one which would be easier for me! Thank you!


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## elf (Jul 19, 2002)

It sounds like a harddrive problem...but I've never heard of a harddrive making that much noise, which is probably why they thought it was the fan (there could be more fans inside the computer that you don't see). I don't do laptops so I don't have any recommendations short of taking it apart and seeing if something is lose (not recommended, but it's what I would do if it were my computer)


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