I play games on pogo or I can be doing anything like answering emails and there is an almost constant sound of a hard drive running, at least that is my guess. Any ideas why?

Is it the fan?

Adware, spyware, or a virus doing its own thing - use task manager or ctrl alt del (once) to see what's running.

sounds like it might be heating up. try cleaning out all the vents

does it sound like it's about to take off like an airplane?

it's the fan. it's overworked.

Depends how many rpm's that baby is it is 10 or 12k rpm ya your gonna hear that baby, if it's old school i'd start backing stuff up

Warning,warning .... Danger Will Robinson.

Do you have a CD or DVD in your disc drive. Under certain conditions, even if you are not accessing it the drive will start up and run. Depends on the computer.

There's three distinct sounds a hard disk makes.
The first is when it's spinning but idle. The
second is when it's spinning and reading or writing.
The third is when it parks, then stops spinning.

The second is of most concern; it can vary quite
a bit. 'Disk thrash' is when it's spinning and
reading/writing like crazy; this often comes with
a dramatic slowdown in operation of the user
interface. Modern operating systems often have
a means to monitor system load; load goes up quite
a bit when the disk is thrashing.

Frequent disk thrashing can be a sign you've got
too many applications open and/or are running out
of memory. If you want to continue like that, it
eventually becomes almost necessary to upgrade to
a faster CPU or more memory or both. Adjusting
swap space (virtual memory) can affect things as
well.

It is possible to get a good handle on how much
disk thrash should be happening, by repeated
exposure to it. Like if you open a graphics-
intensive application and use it, you can often
expect an acceptable amount of additional thrash.

A good operating system should terminate an
application that's run out of memory, often
cleanly -- wouldn't have to reboot immediately
to clean up the environment and continue. It's
a sign more memory should be in the machine, or
fewer applications running when you use that one.

In your task manager, you might want to check to make sure you're not going over the limits of the physical memory on your machine.

That is, if you have 512mb physically on your machine, and your Task Manager says you're using 750mb, then that means that you're using "virtual memory"...which is basically some hard drive space set aside to pep up your PC. When you use virtual memory, your hard drive spins.

thanks all ....it's not the fan..I know that sound

its easy to tell when a hard drive is startin to go bad... First it will start making a "skipping" sound.. then it will sound like it is writing over and over again, then it goes back to the skipping sound combined with the writing sound.. then files are unaccessable and sometimes it wont allow your PC to start up at all.. At the final point, everything is unaccessable and you will wish u had backed certain things up..

#1 rule with hard drives.. always partition them into different segments.
#2 rule is to always back things up on CD or DVD

rule #2 change from cd to external drive

and i would hurry if i was you

shut down
unplug
take the side off

touch the case frame with arm and maintain contact

check processor cooling fan and heat sink to see if they are full of crap

this would cause heat up of unit and possibly cause noise

good luck

(can of air to blow it out)

It could be overheating...try a chill pad...(if were talking laptop) they cost around 50 bucks:)

Most desktops have lights on the front of the machine. It the light flashes and coincides with the noise you are hearing, then more then likely a hard drive is running?
I have read and some rules are...when they start making sounds that are not common. You may want to buy a new hard drive and back up all your information on the new hard drive. Then if it crashes you are save from loosing information you want to keep.
You can also take your CPU boox outside in the garage and turn the vacuum cleaner on it...with the hose reverse to blow out all the cob webs and dust. Always touch and ground to the case for static charge release. It is good maintenance to clean and dust. Make sure you take a pencil and keep the fans from whirling in circles...if you are blowing with a vacuum cleaner hose or charged air.
If you have a copy of Norton Ghost or someother programing that will do an exact copy of your hard drive with registry's included. Then if the old hard drive crashes...all you have to do is plug the power cord in and the Eide or sata cable. And you are back in business again.
My experiences has been..if there is a noise in the case..the first place I look is the CPU fan or Power Supply fan? Good Luck