Am I the only one with a blip/pop noise?!

Out of interest, have you guys got you MBP muted? I get a noise like the noise you guys are reporting when my MBP is muted and sound playback is initiated. I assume this has something to do with the audio circuits sleeping until needed, but of course in mute no sound starts, so you just get the noise of the speakers being powered.

Could someone reporting this issue give the following a try and report back?
1. Mute their MBP
2. Open iTunes or whatever and start playback.
3. See whether the noise at the start of playback is the one you are describing.

Also, to see if it's the read/write heads being parked someone experiencing this could always shake their machine to induce the heads being parked and see if it's the same noise too (Although in my experience the hard drive parking sounds like a metallic clunk, not a ping pong ball).

Anyway,
Good Luck Guys!

The sound-problem you are referring to is a different problem, though I experience that as well. This thread is related to the harddrive-constant-parking "Plonk!" sound/behaviour.

Was worth a try.
Out of interest, has anyone worked out what's causing this?

stephenallred,

You may want to spend a little time reading the posts here and you'll get an idea of the issue and the likelihood of it's cause being a hard drive 'head-parking' issue that many of us have been closely monitoring.
A lot of man-hours and effort and money has been spent by people returning MBP's and having them repaired and talking to specialists etc. etc. and not making much headway on the issue.

Many of us that work in the sound fields and/or in quiet environments continue to be frustrated that no official fix has been offered by Apple but rather an intermittently working and unsupported 3rd party fix which you can read much about in the above posts.

Im another with this popping sound, i actually just made a post about it a few minutes ago, surprised to see others with the same issue. I thought it was the ram but im guessing its the harddrive. Its such an annoying pop aswell, like a hollow metal kind of pop. Does my head in.

Just wandering if you guys had luck with apple swapping because of this machine? Mine is currently 3 days old and has been doing it out of the box.

An update on my HDD swap out, I was all set to put a Hitachi 250GB travelstar in, but Another member has already done this and still suffers from "the PLINK", he reckons it was worse then the Fujitsu. Interestingly both drives are 5400RPM drives. Has anyone experienced this on a 7200RPM drive or a 4200RPM drive? This would be interesting to know.

I'd go for a 7200RPM Western Digital 250 or 320 RPM, if folks reckon thye might be a better bet.

One other thing of note is this, my mate has a 2.33Gig 17" MBP with a 120GB Fujitsu and its quite as a mouse. As far as I can see this issue is confined to the Santa Rosa release and the latest 'Penryn' release of the MBP!

I am going abroad for a month next week, so I won't be doing the HDD swap until I get back, but many of you may be interested to know that I have convinced my mate with the 17" MBP to get his HDD swapped out as well and he is going to get the same drive as me. So if mine still makes the noise and his doesn't after the swap, it'll narrow down the field of possible culprits quite a lot.

I will keep one and all posted.

PLINK

Can anyone with this problem, please repost stating very clearly and concisely what make of HDD they have in their MBP, what size and what is it RPM rating. So we can get a clear list of the most common offenders configurations. If you read this and DO NOT suffer the noise, please note your specs clearly and State clearly that you are not a victim of the "PLINK"!

So I Have a 15" 2.2 MBP (Santa Rosa) w/ a 120GB Fujitsu 5400RPM
My wifes 15" 2.4 MBP (Penryn 08) w/ a 200GB Fujitsu 5400RPM

Both machines exhibit the "PLINK"

Cheers Folks

15'2.2 MBP w/ a 160GB Fujitsu 5400RPM

PLINK PLINK PLINK

{quote:title=dawnrazor wrote:}
Can anyone with this problem, please repost stating very clearly and concisely what make of HDD they have in their MBP, what size and what is it RPM rating.{quote}

I have the "PLINK/HDD-plonk" sound. I own the very latest MacBook Pro (2.5 GHz, 15") with a 200 GB 7200 RPM drive.

From "About this Mac:"

Capacity: 186,31 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS722020K9SA00
Revision: DC4AC77A

About the problem:

Has plonk: Yes
Since when: Day 1
Thread fix: Worked

Message was edited by: gloom909

i describe what you call a "plink" as like a hollow metal "pop". its a very irritating sound to the ear as it has this alloy/metal kind of sound to it. in a quiet room trying to study its unbearable.

i have a penryn 08, 15", its 3 days old
hard drive is:
Capacity: 186.31 GB
Model: FUJITSU MHY2200BH

MBP 15" 2.4GHz 2008 Penryn
hd Seagate ST9200420AS 200GB/7200 rpm

plonk plonk plonk from the day 1
resolved with the hdapm procedure_

Should i bother getting this replaced or should i just use the tread fix? Does the fix do anything detrimental to the machine, or prevent potential benefits of what the machine was doing in the first place that made this sound?

Apparently having it replaced does little, since the official approach (judging from this thread and others) seem to be that they just say that it is "Normal operating procedure", and many people who have had it replaced experience the same problems with the new machine. But of course, you decide yourself.

I need the machine, and the fix mentioned in the thread does not seem to violate any EULA or Apple Care agreement, so as long as that works for me I do not want to send it in for service.

Theres no way in **** this can be deemed "normal", as this is my 3rd mbp in 3 weeks and i can safely say with 100% certainity that the other machines did not make this noise. If they try to tell me this is normal behaviour then ill ask for a refund as i clearly do not want a machine that makes this amount of noise as the "norm". As i said, when i first heard this noise i was reluctant to even chase it up as its 'just a noise', but it gets annoying FAST. makes using the computer in a quiet room unpleasurable. I didnt pay 3000 for something to annoy me.

My pop has decided to stop. I didnt do anything, its just gone

The hard drive still makes a movement noise every now and then, like something sliding i guess, i prefer that over that pop sound any day though.

Can i ask you guys if your hard drive makes noise? Ie can you hear it humming from a moderate distance from the machine? I can hear mine, and when i put my ear up close its sought of like a rough hum, not smooth. almost as if i can hear things scratching