Clicking 'hard disc'?

[Jimbo]

Hi all. My Mesh Elite Quad 6500 has slowed considerably. I have cleared out a lot of rubbish that has accumilated over the year but it is still slow. I now get an audible 'click' every 5 or 6 secconds. It seems to be coming from the HD. On start up there is no click but when all has 'loaded' and my desktop is there then the clicking starts.

Is there a connection between the click and the slow speed. The computer was blindingly fast but now while it is still ok it just grates a bit. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Jimbo

[red fox]

If the click is coming from the HD, it is almost certainly a sign that the HD is about to give up the ghost.

Get as much data from the HD backed up now as the problem will only get worse until the HD eventually stops working completely.

[DrATty]

It can be a sign of imminent disk failure and, as red fox says, make sure everything is backed up as soon as possible.
It's worth checking your power settings in the Control Panel too. I set a disk to power down too often and it clicked each time it stopped spinning.
Computers do slow down with use because of disk fragmentation and the general junk they collect over time. Defragmenting a disk makes a little difference but don't try it on a disk that might be failing because it might kill the disk. Nothing beats a reinstallation of the operating system, applications and data in giving a PC a boost in speed.