Hopefully not the hard drive

[fatty1931]

My computer posts just fine ,but when it comes time to load Windows, I hear a clicking noise, like a light switch was turned on or off. Some times the monitor goes black and there is no more disk activity, sometimes safe mode, sometimes normal. Please help. Thanks.

[rangeral]

Open the case and make sure the sound is coming from the hdd, if it is I hope you've backed up your data previously sounds like the drive needs to be replaced. If its within warranty usually 3 years you can send it back to the manuf. What size and how old is the hdd? Give us the rest of your system specs as well including the OS.

[fatty1931]

It is a Maxtor 40 gb, 7200 rpm. The warranty is good until sometime in 2004. I think February. Epox 8kha+ mainboard, Athlon XP 1600+ processor, 384 mb ddr ram, case with 400 watt power supply, dvd drive, cd rom drive, cd rw drive, floppy drive, Windows ME operating system.

[fatty1931]

I also have a GeForce 4 MX 440 video card(agp), Soundblaster live 5.1 sound card, ATI TV wonder VE tuner card, Agere modem, Linksys lan card. Could it possibly be the power supply, or the video card that makes the noise?

[AllGamer]

BUT WHERE IS THE SOUND COMMING FROM??

were you able to find out where that comes from?

[fatty1931]

It sounds like it is coming from the middle of the case. That is what is so perplexing.

[AllGamer]

Then it definitely seems like to be the HDD that is making those clic clic, sound.

is it the type that is like a peddle inside a can, or the type that is like a long nail scratching a blackboard on and off?

[fatty1931]

It is just 1 click.

[rmanet]

sure sounds like the HDD to me - if you haven't, take a side off of the case and check - maybe go the HDD manufacturer's site to download their HDD software (then boot to a floppy) and try to check the drive that way.

If you are lucky enough to get the machine started, I'd sure back up my files before doing anything else

[fatty1931]

Awhile ago I had a read error, that went away. The other day BIOS didn't see it for a couple of start ups. I pulled the Cmos jumper and put it back on and it appeared. The past few days I tried the Maxtor diagnostic software, but everything came out ok. The drive works ok now. But that 1 click noise is getting annoying. I presumed the click was coming from the hard drive, because it is the oldest hardware in my case. I'm not totally positive because the click sounds like it is coming from the middle of the case. Could a bad hard drive cause the monitor to shut off and me having to restart the computer with the power button?

[rmanet]

as far as I'm concerned, any clicks or other hard type mechanical noises from a drive make me nervous and the manufacturer diagnostics sometimes aren't the most reliable testers - if you disconnect the power to the drive you could boot to floppy to see if that first click (you said it happens when you load windows at boot) you can see if it's something else because the floppy, CD, video will be working and the drive won't have power to do anything. I've also bought some (cheapo) motherboards where along theway IDE 1 caused problems, and I got another 6 months to a year using IDE 2 until I could build a new system (with 5 machines in the house I'm doing that at least one or two a year)

I'm assuming you've also run full scandisk?

I do have some Compaqs at work that "click" periodically when doing some internet stuff, downloads, etc - it happens often, it ain't my machine and it's under warranty so who cares, and I'm assuming it's normal and may even be coming from the mobo onboard speaker (if there is one)

p.s. you don't mention how old the mobo is but I'm assuming the BIOS is correctly identifying the drive and you have the latest BIOS flash loaded?

[fatty1931]

The motherboard is three weeks old, with a March, 2002 BIOS date. I disconnected the data ribbon and it still did it. I then disconnected the power and it did it. If I disconnect both I don't hear a click. The Bios does find the drive 99% of the time. I did run everything but full scandisk. Will try when I go to work today. Also ran all Maxtor diagnostic software.