I have an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54, and I am having an issue with it making strange noises periodically which are driving me nuts. It's a sort of clinking or clunking noise which is coming from somewhere within the laptop. It's best described as sounding a little like a xylophone, crossed with the sound of carbonated soda bubbling in a can. The issue has been happening for the entire time I've had the laptop, which has been a little over a year. It happens both randomly and at some predictable instances, which include:
- Opening the lid to wake the laptop
- Closing the lid to go to sleep
- When the Windows login appears, or when signing into Windows
- When pressing Win+L to bring up the lock screen
These are specific instances where it's fairly predictable, but it is also heard at other random times apparently independently of anything else I might be doing. Sometimes, if I am playing a game or watching YouTube, there will be a very noticeable (but very brief) drop in framerate about a second before the clinking sound is heard, but not always, and I'll still hear the sound occasionally even if I'm not playing a game or watching a video. I am not sure it's a fan, since the laptop still makes recognizable "normal" fan noises when getting warm, and the clinking noise can be heard at the same time as the normal fan noises. But, it could be a different fan than whatever I am hearing. Possibly something on the GPU. It's not the speakers, since this happens even when the speakers are off or even before Windows has booted up. I also wonder if it could be a drive; the laptop has an SSD as its primary drive, but also has a traditional HDD as a backup, but I don't really have anything on the HDD and am not writing anything to it so I doubt it's that.
This also occurs regardless of whether I am using the built-in screen or outputting to an external monitor using HDMI (I am almost always using an external monitor, but will occasionally use both screens at once).
I realize this might seem kind of frivolous, but I'm very sensitive to certain kinds of noises and this is exasperating to me. I have never owned or used a laptop (or any other computer) which makes these kinds of noises--it's a problem I have only had with this specific laptop--which combined with the semi-randomness makes it even more upsetting. I'm really getting frustrated even using this thing at all due to my sensitivity to this sound, which is doubly unfortunate since otherwise it's working very well in all other regards so far and I really want to like it.
Thanks in advance!
