L502x Making a "Squeaking" Sound

[supertoast92]

This is something I've noticed just recently, but periodically my XPS will start making a faint "squeak" sound about 5 times, once every second. It'll repeat after a couple minutes. It's very quiet and hardly noticeable, but I was wondering if anyone knew what's causing this? Could it be the harddrive, and should I be concerned?

Thanks!

[DuX]

Hard drive is in the bottom left corner of the laptop, can you put your ear to it and hear it making the noise?

[supertoast92]

I was just going to post saying it definitely sound like it's coming from the hard drive, but I also noticed I could hear the sound on the right side of the laptop as well. Now I'm beginning to think it's coming from the speakers. I've got them muted and the sound persists, though. And the sound is louder and clearer where the hard drive is located.

Haven't noticed anything degraded performance-wise yet, and I've never had a hard drive crash on me, and I do have important school documents backed up using a briefcase just in case. I've had this laptop since July 2011 I believe, so it's definitely still under warranty. Guess I should give Dell a ring since I've had some strange issues before, where my computer would completely freeze and give a beep and resume (this post here if interested l502x freeze/lockup followed by beep ).

[CurlyMo]

Any follow up with what happened to your machine?

I have been experiencing the exact same issue with my Dell XPS L502X. Every minute or two I hear 5 quiet squeaks coming from what seems to be the hard drive.

After searching you are the only other person I have found with the same symptoms, and the fact that you also have an XPS, and experienced The Exact same problem makes me think this must be something specific to this model.
It is always exactly 5 squeaks each a second apart. I have not experienced any issues with performance. But the sound is driving me mad.

Mine is only 3 months old.

[ximinez]

I'm 95% sure its the harddrive. Five squeaks spaced approx. one second apart is a pretty common "harddrive has a problem" sound. I'm not saying it's going to explode tomorrow, but it's definitely worth checking out.
Download HDTune and check the S.M.A.R.T status.

[supertoast92]

A couple months later and I'm still having the same symptom. I ran the diagnostics and everything checks out just fine, and Dell tech support said that the sound is normal...not too sure about that but I haven't had any problems with it.

[stewabru]

Same computer, same problem. Mine is less than a month old. I have timed it out. There are 5 squeaks that are roughly 1 sec apart. It occurs once every 1 min 5 sec. Its really faint, but really annoying on such an expensive machine. I tried for a few hours to get some support from Dell on this, but the tech guy couldn't understand the explanation of my problem, no matter how many ways I tried to explain it. Any help or understanding of what this problem is and how to fix it would be appreciated.

I saw another link that said if you downloaded and installed this driver that the problem would go away. For me, it went away for the night, but returned the next day. Any thoughts?

[mistermoule]

I believe i had the same problem as you guys but is hard to figure out the type of sound your are hearing while only reading your description, is it a Low pitch or high tone you hear?

I had a low pitch tone that came repeatedly once in a while, but I'm pretty sure it came from the speaker, I completely removed the audio drivers and reinstalled them and it worked fine afterwards.

[Vinnie121]

Hi All,

I'm getting this too on my three month old L502X (aka XPS 15)

As has been stated its beeping five times (one a second) every one minute five seconds.

So five beeps and then silence for a minute and then five more.

The beeps are high pitched and only just audible but irritating when working in a quite environment.

I have muted the sound and also disabled the audio driver and still get them - so it isn't the speakers.

and as discussed it is louder on the left of the machine - seems to be loudest if I put my ear to the vent on the left hand side.

So perhaps it is the disk drive?

Disk drive in mine is a Western Digital wd5000aaks.

Vinnie

[balong48]

Hi All,

I'm getting this too on my three month old L502X (aka XPS 15)

As has been stated its beeping five times (one a second) every one minute five seconds.

So five beeps and then silence for a minute and then five more.

The beeps are high pitched and only just audible but irritating when working in a quite environment.

I have muted the sound and also disabled the audio driver and still get them - so it isn't the speakers.

and as discussed it is louder on the left of the machine - seems to be loudest if I put my ear to the vent on the left hand side.

So perhaps it is the disk drive?

Disk drive in mine is a Western Digital wd5000aaks.

Vinnie

I am having the same sound. WD5000AAKS is a desktop drive, can you check your model again? Mine is a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST750420AS. I also have another weird noise, it sounds like static or scratching of some sort when I scroll up or down on anything. Its not the speakers as I have muted them. That sound seems to be coming directly from the middle of the laptop, which is also where the beeping comes from. If the sound is happening across different brands of hard drives, and its in the middle; its more than likely not the hard drive.