My MacBook Air makes a humming/buzzing sound ALL THE TIME

Hi Vic

If it makes the buzzing when turned off its defective and could be dangerous. There is something wrong internally, maybe a short, causing the buzzing. I would recommend ringing AppleCare or taking it to an AppleStore.

Basically when it is powered off (Shut Down) there should be no power usage by the mac. If it only does it while on it is probably the sound of the fan coupled the the sound of the hard disk.

I think I have a similar problem. My 2 week old MBA's almost completely silent fan has started to make an noticeable whirring today. It's not at the same volume it makes under heavy load, but it's definitely louder at it's idle 2500rpm than it used to be. Loud enough to be noticeable all the time.

Cheers,
Pete

Well I heard the fan/hum sometimes, but yesterday for a brief (10 seconds) moment in made a loud squeal / high pitch, then stopped. Today the battery won't charge and drained to 0% while plugged in with solid green LED light.

Heading to Apple Store, had MA for 15 days.

My MBA has been eerily quiet....I've owned it for weeks, and until I read this post I didn't know it had a fan; I assumed it didn't, to save size and weight. Writing this post, I've been online for over an hour and no fan...and it doesn't feel warm. I assume this is the desired state, and I love it!

My 2 weeks old MBA has the very same problem since today. It was my reason for checking this board. It sounds to me as if he rotating hard drive is touching its housing or something, once and a while. The sound comes from the very center of the keyboard location. When I lift the MBA and slightly roll it towards me the sound appears and disappears and changes in volume. It is loud enough to be irritating and it worries me a little. It sounds like a mechanical problem... Just to be clear, it does not only make this sound when I roll it, but also when it is flat on my desk.

Your experience sounds exactly like mine. The buzzing sound changes in volume when I roll the laptop. The buzzing noise occurs when the fan rotates at 2500rpm and does go away when the fan is running at higher speed, not quite sure why is this.

Exactly the same problem.
Had it for about 3 weeks, now the fan (I think?) is buzzing all the time. Really irritating. Does anyone have a solution or answer from Apple to this? Seems like a definite issue to me.

its a similar problem to my macbook pro. Try to turn on photo booth and listen again, you'll find the sound reducing or disappearing.

They still haven't fixed it on my macbook pro, so i don't think they will on the MBA

I have the same issue with my MBA, which is one month old. Constant noise, buzz coming from the back around FANs. Very irritating. Fans running at 2500.

Probably hardware issue, thinking about going back to get it fixed/replaced MBA by Apple.

I have the same issue, the fan in my new MBA is constantly buzzing. It was silent for 2-3 weeks, and then it started to make every kind of noise, unbearable, so I brought it to be repaired, and I was told that the fan had a factory problem, it was not well enough fixed, and that the only solution is to replace it. So, if you are in the similar situation, you can be pretty sure it has to be replaced, because of the low quality of fans/coolers assembly. I really hope that the new fan will be better.

um i don't really know what's going on in here though. i bought a penryn MBP a few months back after apple released a hardware revision. when i'm playing cpu-intensive games such as ut2004, fan rotates at high speed at around 5500 RPM and makes noise, but other times everything is fine and silent.

are you guys complaining that fans make annoying noise when you run processor-intensive applications?

I also have this issue. My MBA was 2 weeks old and running just fine and one day, the fan started rattling. I found that the fan would be ok but will start rattle after i pick up the MBA. This happens on both MacOS and XP. I then installed a program monitoring the fan speed and it will show a drastic fanspeed decrease (5500rpm down to 2500rpm) when the sound comes on. Anyway, I sent it in for repair and they swapped a new fan in and it's been running just fine for almost 1 week.

My two day old MBA is having identical issue. I can hear the fan noise constantly and iStat Pro reports the fan running at 2500rpm.

On my third day of ownership, I was using it for some processor intensive programming work all day, the fan has now gone quiet.

Maybe the components just need some time to "break in".