I have an Asus K8V motherboard and a AMD Athlon64 3400 system that I just built. I turned it on and started installing the OS and noticed noise coming from the CPU area (not that hard drive, the CPU!). The noise is a "zip, zap, pop" kinda sound, similar to electricity. The noise is only emitted when there is activity in the system, such as installing a program, but goes away when its ideling. I was wondering if this was normal, or if its a problem with my hardware? The system is running fine, no problems so far. Thanks for your responses. System Specs: CPU: AMD Athlon64 3400+ RAM: Kingston HyperX, pc 3000, 512 MB Motherboard: Asus K8V Hard Drive: Western Digital 36.7 Raptor SATA Video: ATI Radeon 9800Pro 256MB Sound: SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Platinum 400W ATX PSU

Let the technician at the shop you bought your PC take a look. He will tell you what the problem is. Expert™

I'm having the exact same problem you are! Well... I guess I'm glad I'm not alone. You said "...noticed noise coming from the CPU area (not that hard drive, the CPU!). The noise is a "zip, zap, pop" kinda sound, similar to electricity. ..." Did you figure out what the problem is, yet? How is your computer running now? I just upgraded my computer from a Athlon Xp 3000+ with a ASUS A7V600 to a Athlon 64 3200+ with the ASUS K8V SE Deluxe. I never had that noise coming from my old setup, now with the Athlon 64 3200+ chip I get the noise pretty much all the time. I just ran hot cpu test on my computer, and during the test it didn't make much noise, but when I started up any graphicly intense video game or any ati demos, it got louder. I do not think it is the processor since the noise didn't increase when I tried the hot cpu test. I'm thinking it's the motherboards northbridge chipset that's making the noise, since the northbridge is tied into the graphics and it makes the most noise when I play 3d games. I'm not 100% sure about this though, I'd like a more concrete explanation. Your System Specs: CPU: AMD Athlon64 3400+ RAM: Kingston HyperX, pc 3000, 512 MB Motherboard: Asus K8V Hard Drive: Western Digital 36.7 Raptor SATA Video: ATI Radeon 9800Pro 256MB Sound: SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Platinum 400W ATX PSU My System Specs: CPU: AMD Athlon64 3200+ RAM: Corsair XMS 3200 DDR, 1024 MB Motherboard: Asus K8V SE Deluxe Hard Drive: Western Digital 74GB Raptor SATA Video: ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128MB Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy PSU: Thermaltake 480W ATX PSU Our computers are very similar, I wonder if it's tied into the video card?