SSD Sound

I have a crucial CT500MX500SSD1 and have it installed for a good while...months.
Recently I took the sides off my tower to mess with a HDD. Basically I unplugged it because I think it is failing and I want to preserve before I do a backup.

I have since noticed an electrical buzzing (i am hyper-sensitive to sound, my wife thinks i'm crazy. "do you hear that?" "hear what" "that buzzing..." "no" "you don't hear that?????"

anyway its a rhythmical buzzing. I have opened task manager and noticed that this drive (I have 1 more SSD and a HDD) is making the sound whenever it's accessed which is pretty much constantly. TM shows write/read and the drive buzzes. It is not a physical sound it sounds electrical. Not shorting out...

Could this be the drive itself? I have never had a SSD go bad on me.
Crucial self-test says it's in good health.

I assume it is your boot drive?

I assume there is no "rotational" component.

I'd try to use process of elimination....

Disconnect all other drives.

Temporarily disconnect or stop fans.

You should be able to narrow it down to 3 things:

Motherboard, power supply, remaining connected drives.

And then use your best ear, perhaps with a megaphone-ish device or screwdriver blade to isolate the exact location.

Definitely try to eliminate the power supply and fans.

SSD wouldn't be my first guess, but I suppose entirely possible.

ignatzatsonic said:

I assume it is your boot drive?

I assume there is no "rotational" component.

I'd try to use process of elimination....

Disconnect all other drives.

Temporarily disconnect or stop fans.

You should be able to narrow it down to 3 things:

Motherboard, power supply, remaining connected drives.

And then use your best ear, perhaps with a megaphone-ish device or screwdriver blade to isolate the exact location.

Definitely try to eliminate the power supply and fans.

SSD wouldn't be my first guess, but I suppose entirely possible.

Right its a typical SSD and the only other drive in there right now is a SSD.
Pretty sure it's the SSD because of what I saw in task manager. I suppose it could be something related to powering the drive.
Yes it is the boot drive.

There's such a thing a "coil whine" on power supplies.

Not common, but possible.

If your ear leads you elsewhere, trust your ear.

I don't think it can be from a SSD.
- no mechanical parts.
- It is powered by DC
- data traffic is megahertz or Gigahertz and we can only hear up to 20 kiloherz.

Ghot said:

@ChrisPbass

Yeah. Dust is probably the issue. The build in your computer specs is pretty old. Even in a clean environment, that will collect dust over time.

Dust, in a high humidity situation can cause teeny arcing, which can sound like buzzing.
Even if it's not arcing, dust can as @Berton mentioned, cause vibrational noises in fans and their heatsinks.

If you're careful you can use a 1.5 foot dowel rod like a stethoscope. Put one end on the skin flap of you're ear, and touch the other end to things you think are making noises.
IF you're touching the thing that's making the noise you'll definitely know.
Just make sure you don't stick the other end of the dowel rod into a moving fan. IF you want to listen to a fan...touch the dowel rod on the fan shroud.

We used to do the same thing, with longer wooden sticks, to hear where a hard to find engine noise was coming from, in a car.


In short...get or borrow an oil-less compressor and blow all the dust out of the computer, even very, very light coatings of dust that you can barely see.

I cleaned it when it I dealt with the other HD...the dowel is a good idea.

Here you go:
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/e...-buzzing-noise