laptop problems - advice anyone?

for a few weeks now, my laptop randomly starts clicking. it sounds as though it's coming from the dvd drive (which no longer works, btw), ad when it's clicking the dvd door light blinks. when I say "click," it could be the sound when a dvd starts spinning perhaps, except no spinning happens. if I tilt the laptop when it's happening, it (usually) stops clicking.

it seems as though it happens more often when I type a lot, and slows down when I stop; but other times I could be typing quickly for minutes at a time and I don't hear it at all. also, it seems as though the laptop needs a bit of time to catch up to my fast web surfing once in a while now, when it never did before.

I haven't upgraded to windows 10 yet. I tried it a few months back and it caused more trouble than it was worth, so I took it back off and went back to 7. I use Norton.

has anyone else run across this? I just want to be sure my laptop's not about to die. I definitely can't afford a new one right now.