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[Elephant Parade]

Well, about five ago I bumped my laptop (not really my fault; the fire alarm went off due to neighbors being incompetent with woodstoves) and it made a weird, loud whirring sound. I turned it off, and later on I turned it on again.

A few days later, it started making a weird clicking noise. After looking it up online, I found out that it's a symptom of either impending hard drive failure or minor fan issues. Once I turned it off, it stopped, and the computer has been behaving normally ever since.

Except today, as of a few minutes ago, there is a pixel that is behaving somewhat oddly. Depending on what webpage I'm on, it varies from being barely perceptible to bright red. Anyway, I figure I should probably try to back up my files, but anybody have advice on what to do afterwards? Am I risking the entire laptop by using a possibly messed up hard drive?

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15R, by the way. I got it in August, if I remember correctly.

[Bdthemag]

A pixel? Sort of a vague description and I doubt it'd be from your hard-drive. I have a shitty old laptop that randomly gets a red line/blue line across the screen depending on what position it's placed in. Although I'm definitely not extremely knowledgeable in anything being basic laptop maintenance/repair, I'm pretty sure you're not dealing with a hard-drive problem here.

[Elephant Parade]

I wasn't sure if the pixel was related; I just thought I should mention it in case it was. Heck, it might even be a problem with the website, though I strongly doubt it.

[Elephant Parade]

Agh. Now there are a bunch of pixels which are slightly off.

[Sensei]

Well, that's monitor damage. If it's still under warranty, get your manufacturer to fix it.

Anyway, what you heard does sound like the Click of Death, which I've had before. Once it meant my hard drive was going to fail, and once it happened but then stopped, liked you described. So far I haven't had further hard drive issues, so you're probably fine for at least a while longer.

[Elephant Parade]

Well, that's monitor damage. If it's still under warranty, get your manufacturer to fix it.

Anyway, what you heard does sound like the Click of Death, which I've had before. Once it meant my hard drive was going to fail, and once it happened but then stopped, liked you described. So far I haven't had further hard drive issues, so you're probably fine for at least a while longer.

Okay. Cool. Also, I can remove the dots by pressing on the screen a bit, so I guess I was a bit too worried.

Also, what's weird is that a bit of grunge on the screen doesn't bother me too much, but a dead pixel drives me insane. I really hate slight imperfections.

[Sensei]

If pressing on it fixes it, your case is probably damaged and applying pressure to the screen normally.

[Elephant Parade]

Huh. It doesn't look damaged.

[Grey Goo]

Do your hard drive support S.M.A.R.T? If, find and download some free diagnosis tools from trusted sites if you don't already have one. Helpful thing to check is there problems with hard drivers. Otherwise let me try do some diagnosis. Have, hm, quite much experience about damaged hard drivers. Like very damaged hard drivers how they begin to act.

Clicking noise. Can you descript it better? There is those not so dangerous clicking noises and there is that weird klik-klik, klik-klik, klik-klonk-klonk-crunch noise. In latter usually reading damaged sector may also lead to slowdowns and even halting of system. One bad sector is usually enough halt everything, severals makes computer unusable complety.

Ah, also you may try scan your disk. There is left click options within icon of driver usually. Through you need do surface check and that may require rebooting...

[Elephant Parade]

Sorry for the semi-necro.

So, after checking in at a local computer store, it sounds like my hard drive is certainly failing. Anybody know Dell's policy on laptop hard drives? I couldn't find it. Also, would they reinstall Windows 8 after replacing the drive?

The fact that such a light bump could wreck the hard drive seems odd, especially since the symptoms didn't show up until later. Is it possible that it might be the fan? That was what was behaving oddly when I bumped it, and I read that the clicking sound has a small chance of being the fan.

To reiterate, the sound is an audible click of varying volume and frequency. It happens once every week or so, and generally from twice a second to once per three seconds. It stops when I turn the computer off, and noticeably slows down the computer.

[jaass]

Did you even open up and see if the fan is damaged?

Anyways, just give Dell a call and ask about their policies.

https://support.dell.com/support/topics/topic.aspx/ca/shared/support/dellcare/en/byphone_ord?c=ca&l=en&s=gen&DoNotRedirect=y

Just word of advice for your next laptop, avoid Dells they are pieces of crap. Instead go for Asus or some HP laptops.

[LordSlowpoke]

heavy emphasis on some, jaass

hp loves to make laptops which are rather powerful but overheat when looked at oddly

[Elephant Parade]

heavy emphasis on some, jaass

hp loves to make laptops which are rather powerful but overheat when looked at oddly

My last laptop was an HP, and I know what you mean.