Packard Bell iMedia X4520uk Whinning noise

If it is still under warranty, take it back - again. I know. It's time consuming and frustrating. But, as we say in the US, you should hold their feet to the fire.

HD capacity - The difference is because we humans calculate gigabytes one way (1X10^9) and computers calculate another way (2^30). Because computer gigabytes are about 7% larger, hard drive manufacturers use human gigabytes to make the drives seem a little larger.

Having said that, your two drives should be indicating about 150 GB. I do not know where the other 18 GB went.

As far as our feelings for Packard Bell are concerned, the regulars here are enthusiasts. We pretty much build all of our computers. We largely feel the same way about HP, Dell, and Compaq.
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Building computers since 1977.

Hi thanks for the reply.. i found out where the other 18gb is, its being used for recovery 15gb of it is and a few mb for something else.. Well as Im a novice I wont be trying to build my own although Im sure with the right tools it wouldnt be hard. I take it from how you feel about these I should stay clear..lol I have a fried Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop that started to not boot up saying no bootable drive detected and a guy who kinda works on them said the motherboard was fried so this is why I went out and got the Packard. It did it a few months ago and was able to go into bios and boot it up by changing the setup but now it wont. Anyhows gonna go here.thanks again

Hi there,
I have had exactly the same experience as yourself. I am on my second Packard Bell iMedia x4520uk due to the same problem: high pitched whine from power supply after Windows 7 shutdown, and the second one does exactly the same. It would appear that maybe all of them do it, so may be a "feature" and not a fault of the machine. It goes away when the PC is unplugged after shutdown as well, even quicker if you press the start up button on top after switching off at the mains, as all remaining charge will go from the PC. I always unplug my PC after shutdown anyway. Just wondering if any of the folks on the forums concur in that it may be the switch mode power supply whining and not necessarily a fault possibly leading to failure?

Regards,
Andy.

Anyone?  

I too purchased the imedia just before Christmas and had the same problem with the first one. I took it back to PC World and they told me that they could not hear anything, no surprise as there was lots of noise in the store. They tried to send me away telling me they had moved a few cables, so I did and nothing had changed.

I took it back and they replaced it and guess what the 2nd one does the same. The only way to stop it, is by removing the power cable completely from the PC, which I have never had to do before purchasing this model.

I have been told by a few friends that it is the PSU and that is could cause problems in the months to come.

I will be returning this PC this weekend once I have backed up all my data.

Umm packard bell is probbally one of the worst or it is THE WORST one of all the companies. I'd suggest if u really dont think u can build your own system i'd say Dell is youe best bet they have a great tech support department and build some pretty solid machines. I myself would never think about buying an OEM computer but thats just me and prob 95% of this site feels the same as me. But Dell is probbally your best bet for a reliable machine my parents had gotten me a dell when i was in high school that was about 12 years ago or so and that thing still works.

The wininig noise would be from the powersupply and most like from either a voltage regulator or a faulty capacitor..

The reason packard bells are sold in pc world and currys is because they are cheap. No Packard Bell has ever impressed me and I am sitting on 10 faulty ones right now.

PC World engineers are low paid with little or no knowledge of any computer they fix and tend to fudge through repairing them. As Currys are part of pc world amazingly most currys know more than a dedicated pc world and they sell toasters.

The staff are un-trained or trained to the minimum and make mistakes on customers machines, they're generally un educated and un-helpfull, always offer extended warranty and are only after a sale. they are not on your side. 0 ( when you do find one let the world know ).....

How on earth DSGI make record figures this season i just dont know.


The computer in question is faulty, it could be a hazard and it should certainly not scream. I would tend to get it back to the shop straight away and demand a full refund. Then i would go pay a bit more for a pc not bloated with crapware and choose what you want to put on it from a dedicated pc shop or dealer - the repair companies are good to go as they know which bits are best and check for these on google.

Not all pc shops are honest, but the banks werent honest either.

Think of meat in a butchers then the meat in ADSA, youll know what i mean.

Good luck everyone

Hi gang.

I purchased an x4520uk packard bell, and guess what? Yup, same problem. I had the "Whatever Happens" agreement from Currys so asked an engineer to visit my home and check out the problem. Needless to say the engineer arrived and quickly established that there was a fault, putting it down to the power supply. He wanted to take my machine away for repair which would take an incredible 5-10 days!! I mean it takes 20 minutes to change a PSU!!! I wasnt much impressed by that, so I decided I'd rather take it back to Currys for an exchange. Heres where it gets interesting. Currys had no x4520uk in stock, neither did their sister company PC World who are based literally next door. So, I managed to blag off them the next model up, the iextreme x5620uk, with double the hard disk space, a gig extra ram, and built in wireless. And lucky for me it didnt cost me a penny extra. Im on the very machine right now, and touch wood no whinning sound.