Recently, my computer has been making a very loud grinding noise when I boot from cold. It seems to take forever to stop and everything goes very slow during this time. What is this and how can I correct whatever is wrong? There are two possibilities that come to mind. One is something that you should deal with, but it’s nothing to really panic over.
The other is definitely worth panicking about. And in fact, given that your machine is running slowly while this is happening, it might be time to start panicking right now. Become a and go ad-free! Problem #1: Fan issues The problem that you want is a fan issue. Many computers will run all the fans at full speed for a few seconds. They do this at start up to make sure that the fans work and to dislodge any dust or dirt that may have accumulated that a low speed wouldn’t just blow out of the way.
If I go -> Sleep or even hold the power button, my Mac goes to sleep but when I go to wake it up I immediately see the screen I'd put it to sleep on. Second, the “QuickBooks” part of this “Quicken vs QuickBooks” article is QuickBooks Online It makes it easier to make decisions about the direction of the business, easier to move from Sole Prop to LLC, easier for bookkeepers and tax preparers to do our jobs.
If there is something partially obstructing the fan, the blades could be hitting it and that could easily sound like a grinding noise. It’s fairly easy to fix if you open up the computer and look for things that are bumping into the blades. This has happened to me multiple times.
The most recent was when I installed a hard drive. I rerouted the cable to make room for the hard drive and as a result, the cable ended up sitting in front of the fan. I heard it and I fixed it simply by moving the cable out of the way. Problem #2: Internal destruction The other option that concerns me is the hard drive. If your machine is working and you’re not already backed up, stop reading right now and back up that machine. Your data may be at a serious risk of complete, irrecoverable loss. Sometimes, when a hard drive is failing or about to fail, it can make those kinds of grinding noises. It’s a precursor to something much, much worse.
Internal destruction is usually what’s next. That grinding noise is something loose inside the hard drive, where there simply shouldn’t be anything loose. That typically means that when that thing becomes completely loose, it’s going to go flying around in there and cause all sorts of destruction within the drive itself. And that kind of destruction is typically irrecoverable. That’s why I started by saying back up, now, while it’s still working. Backing up really is the first step of what turns out to be the only real solution.
You’ll first back up, then replace the drive, and restore all of your data to it from that. How do you tell which it is? My approach would be to open the box and just listen carefully to from where the sound is coming. It’s usually pretty clear – it’ll probably be coming from one of the fans or from one of the drives.
Like I said, the fact that you’re experiencing severe system slowness while this noise is happening really has me concerned about the hard drive. That’s probably what you want to be looking at first. Right after you back up, of course! If it is hard to figure out where the sound is coming from – use something solid, like a hammer handle (or something longer), and place it on different parts of the computer and put your ear up to the other end. Sound travels through solids a lot clearer than air.
You can zero in on what is vibrating pretty fast. Learned it from my Dad when he was working on the family car, but also works great on computers. If you are getting old like me and it is uncomfortable to put your head down into your computer, this is a good second option.
I am a luddite mostlyvery little electronics knowledge. My PC was making noises on cold start up, like a fan vibrating.
The PC would freeze within a couple of minutes too. I’d just press reset because ctrl/alt/del didn’t work. Anyway, this was progressing to repeat itself 4-5 times before the PC would start working. I pulled the cover and vacuumed loads of dust from the box, mostly from around the fan. Upon restart, it worked much better, but the fan still occasionally makes the same rough noise.
I’m guessing the fan needs to be changed. It is an eight year old system so probably overdue. I’ve been having a similar issue, Judy, and the conclusion I’ve come to in my case about the noise is that my computer room is getting too cold at night and I’m starting my computer before the room warms up in the morning. The thermal shrinking seems to be causing the fan to grind against its housing. Once my computer boots fully and displays its temperature monitor, it’s at around 10C.
If you keep your computer in a room that goes below about 45F/7C I’d think a similar issue is likely. See if there’s a way for you to check what your fan is grinding against, though, as it might be a wire or something rather than the housing. However, grinding noises can be just about anything; if yours is a desktop PC, I’d recommend opening the side of the case to find the source of the grinding. If it’s the fan, find out what it’s grinding on and try to move things out of the way if necessary. If it’s the hard drive, do as Leo suggests and back everything up. IF your computer is a laptop, I wouldn’t recommend taking it apart. I’d say go to a PC repair place and let them know the issue and the conditions your laptop have been kept in (like if the room gets really cold).
Amias, I, too, have this problemWhen my computer room is cold, and I start up my computer, it makes a grinding noise. I listen carefully to where the noise is coming from, it’s coming from the power supply area. As soon as the computer room warms up, the noise is gone. But as soon as there is a drop in tempature the computer will grind again.its a 5 year old Sony Vaio and it has already been worked on, meaning, everything in it has been replace except for the power supply. Other than the grinding the “old girl” has been working quite well.
Well my PC is suddenly acting weird, on just few of the Boots, the boot is extremely slow and the case fans are Loud as hell, so after the boot happened, i checked CPU ID Monitor, and cpu temps, hdd temps, hdd utilization, ram utilization (different app), cpu utilization all were low, but the pc was slow as hell. I shut down and restarted it, then the next boot, was rather normal, no loud fan noises, just a regular boot, which was fast, just as it normally is around 17-20 seconds.Now, my problem is that this happens every 2-3 boots, this problem of loud fan and slow boot, i just need to restart or shut it down from mains, until i get the standard boot. My computer is making a scratching noise and it hasnt for 4 days now, but all of a sudden it started and i am very terrified about the hard drive thing. I have animations on here i am working on and do not want to loose it, and my aunt said she would NOT buy me a new macbook. I asked my fellow friends on a flash game forum and they said its the fan and it happens to them all the time, but let me just explain the noise: It sounds like metal is being scratched, or it COULD be my imagination and just be the fan, although i am not very sure.
I have never dropped my computer though i have banged it a few times, the recent being about 6 weeks ago, and it didnt bang hard and everything was fine. I really need to know, Can they fix the drive if it is loose or is it impossible to?
It could be either the fan or the hard drive. But always prepare for the worst. A drive normally can’t be repaired, but it is relatively inexpensive to replace. But you should immediately back up everything. If you have an external hard drive, copy all of you important files to that and then do a system image backup so you will be able to restore the image to your new drive. Macs have the pre-installed Time Machine for that.
If you only have (a) flash drive(s), you can at least back up your important data. A USB or SD flash drive isn’t the best backup device, but if it’s all you have, you can copy everything that fits onto it. Then if you don’t have an external hard drive, get one and take a system image backup. Start taking daily image backups starting with a system image and continuing with daily incremental backups. You can use it restore your system to your replacement drive. Then after replacing the drive, continue with the backup plan. Before commenting please:.
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Sometimes things just don’t go well—files get messed up, computers crash. But don’t worry—it’s easy to get QuickBooks going again. If you’ve upgraded to QuickBooks for Mac 2013 or later, you probably already know that we’ve changed the way we help you back up your all-important company file.
If you’re new to QuickBooks, you probably just want to know how backups and restoring backups of your company file works. Setting up backup for your company file The first thing you’ve got to do is set up your backup preferences. Here’s how:. Launch QuickBooks for Mac 2015 (if you haven’t already). Go to QuickBooks Preferences. Choose Backup. Now you’ve got some options:.
Set QuickBooks to automatically back up the company file every few hours or once a day. Set QuickBooks to automatically back up every time you close your company file. Choose a place to put your backup files. If you have a secondary or backup hard drive available, it’s a good idea to set the backup location to that drive. If you use Apple’s Time Machine, you can choose a folder on the Time Machine drive for your QuickBooks backups. Choose whether or not QuickBooks overwrites the backup file each time it creates a new backup.
Decide whether to encrypt your backup and create a password or not. It’s a good idea to set a password (which automatically encrypts your backup file) if you’re backing up to Time Machine or to a cloud solution like Dropbox or Skydrive. If you’re the only user on the computer and you’re backing up to a private secondary drive, you probably don’t need a password. Tip: Be sure you pick a password you can remember. Once it’s encrypted and passworded, your backed up data cannot be unencrypted without your password—not even by us at Intuit!. Decide whether to back up your Attached Documents Library with your company file. Tip: If you use attachments, we think it’s a good idea to choose this option.
What QuickBooks does to create a backup When QuickBooks backs up your company file, it creates a disk image—that is, a file with a.dmg extension. Unless you’re a computer geek, you probably won’t care about the details of this kind of file. We create.dmg backup files so that you don’t accidentally open a backup company file and start making changes in it directly. I’ve seen what happens when a user does that—it creates a huge mess! But that does lead to the question—how do you restore your company file from one of these.dmg backup files?
Restoring from a backup Each.dmg file QuickBooks creates when it backs up your data includes a copy of your company file and your Attached Documents Library (if you use and back up attachments). Here’s how you use the.dmg to restore your company file:. Go to your backed up disk image and double-click it to mount it (open it).
A new window will open, containing your file, attachments library, and restore instructions. Double-click on the Restore Instructions icon to open the PDF. This will tell you step-by-step how to restore your company file and attachments library. You cannot open your company file from the disc image, as it is read-only, so you’ll need to copy it to a directory on your hard drive in order to open it, such as Documents or your desktop. Drag the company file (with the.qb2015 extension) where you want it to be. If you use attachments and you have set up your backup preferences to back up the Attached Document Library, drag the Attached Documents Library folder where you want it to be.
Tip: We recommend that you put your Attached Documents Library in the same place as your company file. Open your company file. Go to QuickBooks Preferences. Choose Attachments. Click the Attached Documents Library menu and choose Select Existing.
Navigate to the Attached Documents Library folder you restored in Step 3 and choose it. Click Open. Close the Preferences window—your choice is saved automatically. Your company file is restored, and your Attached Documents Library is restored and connected to your restored company file.
About Liz Hamill Scott is the newest member of the QuickBooks for Mac team, but she's no stranger to QuickBooks. For the last few years, Liz has used QuickBooks for Mac to track the many expenses she incurs as a travel, food, and lifestyle writer. The author of, and numerous magazine, newspaper, and blog articles, Liz loves advocating for travelers with hidden disabilities and takes the business of being a sole proprietor seriously.
You can find Liz on the web at. You can also to the QuickBooks for Mac community.