Um, just now, my computer started making this humming noise, and I have no idea why. 
It's never done this before. It kinda sounds like an airplane would flying overhead - that faint sound when it is way up in the sky and you can't see it, but you know it's there and flying by.
Everything is still acting fine, so I'm not that worried about it.
Any ideas what it is?
My guess would be dust on one of the fans?
Hmm, my sister was hearing it in the living room from my bedroom.
I just whacked the side of the case and it stopped, so it's all good.
last time my hd was making it funny noise was right before it crashed. i had to get a new one cause that one was not recoverable. I'd suggest backing up anything of importance.
I actually backed up everything important earlier this week, so if it craps out on my, it's all good.
Thanks guys.
could just be a case fan.
but yeah, just watch out. it might be the hard drive, but it's good you made backups.
Check to see if your computer supports temperature monitoring (search for MBM5) so you can verify that it's not running too hot.
My old comp did this kind of noise and it stopped with whacks to the side, turns out it was the case fan like dreamz said; you could say it was the fan's death rattle... on its final days I had to run it without the side panel for it to keep cool because the fan would not start (but the noise was gone >.< )
Yeah, it's probably a case fan. My fan on the chipset is failing. Luckily it runs coll enough with just a heatsink so it's not a problem. But it does make a noise just like the one you have.
This might be due to the grease on the fan's axle drying up. I found that taking apart the fan and regreasing the axel fixed the noise problem. It just tends to happen if you fan is really old and your comp is on a lot. This happened to me and eventually the fan just stopped spinning. I took it apart and found that the axle the fan spins on was bone dry and it was more difficult to make the fan spin with my finger than it should i been. I put some vaseline on there and reassembles the fan and it works great again. I also finally found out that the fan is electromagnetically powered... which is pretty cool.
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