27" iMac hard drive noise

I do agree with you on Apple's approach being lackluster, but I also think that there are quite a few Apple-heads who are making a mountain out of a mole hill. After all, a grumbling hard drive is not stopping you from using the computer, it doesn't affect the performance at all (genuinely faulty hard drives excepted), and on the whole those hard drives would be making that noise regardless of what machine they were in; if it's actually outside of the hard drive's acoustic specifications then I'd have cause to complain, but in order to test that I'd need some professional sound test equipment and the actual hard drive in a proper test box.

I just wonder whether Apple have not activated these hard drive's acoustic dampening technologies, if there's something in the firmware that's not been set, some silent mode setting or other. Perhaps this really could be fixed with a simple Apple update.

Rustybucket wrote:

It is starting to look like I may have to sully myself with Windows 7 in the near future. Ack!

I wonder how many other recent Apple converts will be going back to Windows boxes after the trouble they have had with their "premium" iMacs?

Pfft! Not a chance! If I had to, I'd go to a Kubuntu box, it's like a freaky hybrid of Windows 7 and OS X but without all of the security vulnerabilities of Windows nor the proprietary nature of the Mac. Probably try building my own convection-cooled case for it too, with ultra-silent fans on the CPU and graphics, etc.

WrongCoaster wrote:

The unit itself works well and is speedy but is that the way to approach a new product -- settling?

Mine too, I have settled for the yellow tinge and audible hard drive. Generally I can't see the yellow tinge anyway, and I'm used to noisy hard drives in other computers, though it is annoying as my previous iMac was totally silent. Like you, I really can't be fussed packaging it all up and sending it back time and again as it looks like it's a manufacturing thing that has not been addressed and may not be for some time (or not at all until the next iMac update).

One question: is it possible these issues can be addressed with software or firmware updates or are they functions of something else such as inferior components (compared to what may have been used in earlier models)? Not being too technically oriented, I'd would love to know if updates are even a realistic option.

From what I read on MacRumors forums the yellow tinge is a hardware thing. Someone disassembled their iMac to investigate and, in the process of putting it all back together neatly and tidily, accidentally cured their yellow tinge. They reckoned it was the backing to the monitor, which I can believe as if it's even slightly buckled it would show up as a shadow on the screen, which is effectively what the yellow tinge is. I may well be investigating this myself once I've owned the machine a couple of years, if I can be bothered that is!

How about if you attempt to turn off Spotlight searches all together? Prevent it from cataloging any part of your hard drive.

From what I've observed using Activity Monitor and the top command, the culprit of the regular disk 'grumbles' / disk writing is the mds process which is for building the meta data index of the hard drive - it never seems to complete!! Even after leaving the machine on over night a couple of times to allow it time to finish it's job.

However, there is only 185MB of data on the disk (no external HDs attached) and I'm not writing additional data at the moment - so it should have finished long ago.

Seems to me like a software problem in Snow Leopard rather than a hardware problem. Could Journaling also be playing a part in the problem or is the swap space being indexed by Spotlight? (which it shouldn't be doing) - which might account for why mds never completes because the swap space can be constantly changing.

I have given up on the iMac and am thinking of going to Windows 7.
The cost is about a 1000.00 less for an HP with a 23" LED screen.

I am holding out to see how the MBP's are.

Frank

btw, feedback about the issue can be forwarded to Apple via this link:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/imac.html

I have fixed the grumbling disk problem on my iMac! The regular disk activity/grumbling is gone, and the iMac now just softly hums which is fine! 🙂

turned out the culprit wasn't an mds process; it was a process due to a background programme which was running and the demo time had expired and it needed authorising.

So I'd recommend checking what demo-mode third-party software you have installed/running on your iMac.

How can you determine which processes are running unnecessarily?

You could use 'Activity Monitor' (in Utilities) to view processes.

The ones running as 'root' are probably best left alone but the processes running under your own user name should be examined more closely; for example by checking the '% CPU' for them.

Through this process I was able to determine which software was causing the 'grumbling' on my iMac, and then subsequently deinstalling it.

i just received my new 27" iMac with 1TB hard drive last week. it was manufactured only weeks ago at the beginning of April 2010 and shipped directly from China. i, too, have noticed that my hard drive is audible when a large application or file loads. however, it has become much less noticeable over the past week and was never even close to being considered loud. it's not that i think it's quieter based on having become use to it. i noticed it once when i started up the computer for the first time, installing software, etc. and just now when i came across this thread i tested it again by turning off my music (which i'm always listening to on very low).

i would assume that this is normal based on the manufacturer of of hard drive. just like how some super drives sound different than others when a DVD is inserted/ejected.

Just adding my +1 to this issue.

Picked up my new 27" i5 a few weeks ago. Funnily enough, this issue was not there from the start... it seems to have appeared somewhere along the line.

I can't quite pin-point exactly when it appeared but it might be around the time i updated by Bootcamp drivers to 3.1 although having read this thread it doesn't seem to be a dual-boot only issue. The noises are there whether I am running Mac OSX or Windows 7.

Really REALLY quite annoying, i'm at a loss for what to do. A small part of me hopes that this is fixable via driver update because I really cannot be bothered lugging a 27" computer around to a noisy store where the person looking at it probably won't even be able to hear it. But in a silent room, with an (otherwise) silent computer it's very noticeable, and very VERY annoying 😟

"After all, a grumbling hard drive is not stopping you from using the computer"

On the contrary the grumbling is hindering me from recording audio - especially when recording acoustic instruments - because it is actually loud enough for the mic to pick it up.

I've just gotten my i7 back after a 2 week stint in an apple store (new fan, new superdrive that hopefully won't scratch all my cds/dvds, and a new HD). On initial boot up it didn't have anymore grumbling but when I restored my old user profile the grumbling was back (albeit less severe).

This would lead me to assume it is a software issue

i bought a new imac and had to return it due to heavy backlight bleed. it was working perfectly. turns out the first one was manufactured in the US and had a WD drive, the new one was made in China and came with a Seagate. i also had to do a fresh install of the OS after a few days, it's worked fine since though (what's up with that? the install is corrupted right from the factory????). i did several days worth of stress-testing in OSX and Windows, the hardware is all good, no problems except for the noisy drive.
i'm a PC technician and i've learned 2 things, 1) Seagate drives are usually noisy and 2) they're no more prone to failure than WD drives. if anything i probably see more bad WD drives. if your iMac came with a Seagate that isn't noisy you're just not noticing it or it's a fluke (and of course it SHOULDN'T be noisy constantly)

Hi, I might be posting this in the wrong thread but...

I have a 20-inch Early 2008 with a 250GB WDC WD2500AAJS-40VWA1 hard drive. This has been bugging me lately- whenever I try to access Finder, or any of the folders in it, it makes this weird rumbling noise, not tapping though.

My warranty ran out February, and how much would a HDD exchange cost at Apple?