It looks like HP computer's quality is really going downhill. The graphics card NVIDIA GeForce 9500GS that the brand new desktop comoputer HP Pavilion Elite m9450t uses is making a lot of grinding noise intermittently. We are talking about a brand new computer only used for less than 2 months. I eventually figured out where the noise was coming from and why. The graphics card has a mini fan. The fan housing has several screws to hold the mini fan. Because the space is tight, a slight tilt of the unperfect vertically screwed assembly will block the fan's spinng path, hence creating the loud noise. I called the HP customer care (24x7) in India, which will take 3 hours or more to go through, asking me to turn off the computer, disemble all the cables, all wires conntected to the computer, take the card out, clean off the dust of the fan, put it back in, plug in all the power cables, turn it on, and still making noise, then got transfered to a hardware specialist, saying this is a recalled item, sending me a replacement.... The ordeal goes on and on... with my previous experience with the "HP Care", they sent me wrong part, and do all these over again... Here is a bunch of links about Nvidia recall.

Taking this graphics card out is very tricky! There is a hidden lock underneath the PCI socket that locks the card into the socket. The lock is out of sight so if you never touched this before, you will not be able to pull this card out. You will pull one side of the card out of the socket, and the other side remains in the slot. If you forcefully pull it out, it could damage the motherboard. So be very careful. The lock is beneath the card, attached to the slot socket. So just use your finger to go underneath the card and push black tip side ways, then it will unlock the card.