I took apart a computer to give it a thorough cleaning -- too much dust and cat fur had gotten inside. On reassembly, the CPU itself seems to be making a conspicuous whine, cycling high to low, sort of like a mobo's alarm noise (but not nearly so loud as that.)
I've stopped the case fan and the CPU fan indepedently -- it's not them. Just listening closely for where the sound is seems to rule out the hard drive (which is reasonably quiet, and which I just suspended) and the power supply .
The noise varies a little with activity, occasionally going silent for a moment before the whine resumes. And it's initially quiet during boot, until it's booted from the hard drive (but I swear the noise isn't the hard drive, which is far enough away from the CPU that that'd be obvious.)
Has anyone experienced a CPU starting to behave like this? Is it a sign of imminent death?
CPU: if it's crying, is it dying?
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There's a thread called 'BE-2350 whine' that's still on the front page of this forum (currently just a few threads down). This sounds similar to that.
Direct link: viewtopic.php?t=43883
Direct link: viewtopic.php?t=43883
I continued using my whining VA-20 for at least 6 months IIRC, there was no problem whatsoever even when I stressed it hard. After that, the guy whom I sold it to never complained about anything too. Maybe he couldn't complain about the whine since it was clearly stated there when I sold it off at half price.