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Occassional Thud + Hard Drive Whir?

I purchased a stock 1.83 Macbook at an Apple Store last weekend and think that it's a great machine in all regards but one. No overheating, no whining, heard the moo once faintly when the fans were getting really fired up... the keyboard and display are great, small and lightweight, putting in 2 GB of ram makes it fly, etc.

Unfortunately, it's been plagued with a strange phenomemenon: occasionally, the computer emits a small thud and the hard drive spins for a split second. It happens once every 30 seconds to 3 minutes, just often enough to be really annoying in a quiet room. This is not the computer accessing anything; the computer will be sitting totally idle on the desktop and just beep + whir. It happens when idling/running in safe mode and still occurs after doing both an archived reinstall of Tiger and a total reformat and reinstall of Tiger.

It happens both before and after the Apple software updates and occurs when idling, browsing, chatting, etc. It happens when Bluetooth and Wireless are disabled, and all external devices are unplugged from the computer. It is fairly quiet, so it's not an issue when listening to music, but muting the volume doesn't solve the problem, leading me to guess that it might be a hardware problem. This is, however, just a guess.

I spent a few hours on the phone with different AppleCare representatives, including an expert to whom I was referred after calling in 3 times about this same issue, but none of them could come up with any other instances of this occuring or any real insight other than "Take it into a store and have someone look at it, since the problem is difficult to diagnose over the phone." I do plan on taking it to an Apple Store but was wondering if anyone else experienced this problem and found a solution? Thanks in advance.

Macbook 1.83 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Jun 17, 2006 7:56 PM

Best reply

cdgarc1

Level 2

195 points

Posted on Jun 17, 2006 8:04 PM

I say just take it to the store. Tell them you're afraid your hard drive is going to blow up or something. "I think it's going to crash. Boo Hoo..." See if they will have it replaced for you.

Good luck!

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75 replies

Jun 19, 2006 5:33 PM in response to hhaboston

Wow, those are strange sounds from your descriptions...

I was commenting because I've had people bring back systems because of the drive noise. Once they accept it, it's not an issue...

Systems shouldn't 'pop', no matter what someone says. Mine is quiet. No whirring, mooing, popping... If it's popping it could be too not...

Don't know... Need more info. Glad mine isn't doing that...

Jun 19, 2006 8:16 PM in response to hhaboston

Satoru -

I listened to your mp3, and I am certainly experiencing the same sound. Like you, I am more annoyed at it than anything else. I notice that some days, mine "clinks" more than others. Today for instance, it has only done it a few times.

I would also be worried about the potential of returning it and getting one that has more/different problems (as hhaboston did), especially if this is one that could potentially be fixed by a firmware update.

Jun 20, 2006 1:32 PM in response to LuckymeLuckymud

I haven't purchased a MacBook or Pro yet, but my PowerBook 15" has a built-in Sudden Motion Sensor that will automatically park the heads whenever it detects motion. This sensor technology is included in all MacBooks and MacBook Pros. See:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300781

I've also heard an occasional brief sound like a ball-bearing dropping that turned out to be the hard drive heat calibrating.

So, I'd check out these two options before going off the deep end...

Jun 22, 2006 6:22 AM in response to hhaboston

OK, now I am getting a little worried. Right now, the clicking is happening much more frequently... around once every 6-7 seconds. It's not constantly like that, but once the clicking starts, that's how frequent it is.

It's not only hyper-annoying, I'm starting to think that this could be the beginning of a hard drive failure. I remember my previous Apple laptop -- Powerbook G4 12"/1GHz -- whose HDD failed within the first 1.5 months of usage. These things happen.

I'm going to start backing up stuff and see where this goes.

Jun 22, 2006 10:56 AM in response to Satoru Murata

Satoru -

I also notice that once the clicking starts, it's fairly consistent -- not 6-7 seconds for me, more like 20-30. However, if I turn the macbook off for the night, it may or may not start clicking again in the morning.

It's really inconsistent about when it starts clicking, but once it does, it's off and running.

Just out of curiousity, do you think that taking out and reseating the hard drive would do anything to help this at all?

Jun 22, 2006 11:19 AM in response to LuckymeLuckymud

Oh, and one other thing: Does yours click when you shut down the computer? Mine will ALWAYS make one last "clink" when it shuts down. Anyone else?

Jun 22, 2006 11:26 AM in response to LuckymeLuckymud

Try this app called APM Tuner X - it allows you to change the APM value of your hard drive[s] so that they operate in near silence (move slider all the way to the right and click OK) or so they use less power (move slider all the way to the left and click OK). If successful, you should year a noise upon clicking OK.

APM Tuner X

Jun 22, 2006 1:56 PM in response to LuckymeLuckymud

Oh, and one other thing: Does yours click when you
shut down the computer? Mine will ALWAYS make one
last "clink" when it shuts down. Anyone else?

I don't think reseating the HDD will do anything. This is something internal (that is, inside the HDD itself). And I think it does the clink when I shut down, although I hardly ever "shut down" my laptop -- only put it to sleep. But then again, that's what's supposed to happen with hard drives. When you finish using it, the head moves to the park position, creating the clinking sound, so the last clink is normal.

I tried APM Tuner X. Won't even start up for me, although what I read in the Read Me was pretty promising.

Jun 22, 2006 8:24 PM in response to Satoru Murata

Incidentally what HDD do you guys who hear the "click" sound have?

I just upgraded my 60GB HDD to a Seagate Momentus 100GB and it too has this sound (with the 60GB no sound existed). I have emailed Seagate for them to analyse the sound.

Jun 22, 2006 8:22 PM in response to AppleTalker

Oh yeah, that's some important info I forgot to mention. Mine is an 80GB FUJITSU MHV2080BHPL, BTOd from the Apple Store.

Jun 22, 2006 8:36 PM in response to Satoru Murata

You know I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with the Sudden Motion Sensor.

I'm taking it to a techie when he's free to check it out. I bought mine online from the Apple Store so the situation is a bit more complicated then just a simple "exchange" unfortunately.

*EDIT: Actually considering you have a different HDD maybe it has something to do with the fan? I'm not getting the moo sound but do have the tick whereas you have both.

Jun 22, 2006 9:11 PM in response to AppleTalker

I have the 100GB Fujitsu that came BTO from Apple.com. I don't have the "moo."

But I do want to emphasize that I only really notice the click when I'm idle or running low-impact programs -- websurfing, iTunes, email. Once I starte messing around with Garageband or iDvd, the click seems to go away. But then I'll close Garageband, and after a few seconds the "click" returns.

The sound is exactly the same sound as the last "click" when I shut the computer off.

It seems odd that this is occuring with multiple HD brands, doesn't it?

Incidentally, someone mentioned earlier that they noticed a spike in writing activity (if you open the Activity Monitor) whenever the click occured. Should the HD be writing that often when the system is idle or nearly idle?

Jun 22, 2006 9:24 PM in response to LuckymeLuckymud

messing around with Garageband or iDvd, the click
seems to go away. But then I'll close Garageband, and
after a few seconds the "click" returns.

That's because the HDD will go into a continuous read/write mode and won't have the time to "park" the head.

The sound is exactly the same sound as the last
"click" when I shut the computer off.

I'm sure it IS the exact same sound.

It seems odd that this is occuring with multiple HD
brands, doesn't it?

Good point. That's why I think this has more to do with software/firmware than the drive itself. Again, the APM Tuner sounded promising, if only it would start. The application apparently has been abandoned for a long time.

Incidentally, someone mentioned earlier that they
noticed a spike in writing activity (if you open the
Activity Monitor) whenever the click occured. Should
the HD be writing that often when the system is idle
or nearly idle?

That was me. Although upon closer inspection, it's not 100%. But more often than not, every time there's a click, I see a peak in "write", usually in the hundreds of kilobytes range.

Jun 23, 2006 5:56 AM in response to Dallas Almond

I contacted Seagate and they recommended to me that I should replace the hard drive. They said it was a unique sound.

I recall having a Seagate drive in my previous Powerbook which made a "clunk" sound (like a marble being dropped) Seagate informed me it was the hard drive parking as someone mentioned in a post above. It may well be this is what is happening, but I am curious how this could be considering we have different drives?

Anyways it's Friday night here and I have to wait until Monday morning to arrange a replacement. I will go through the motions and let you know what happens.

In the mean time I'm going to refer this thread to Apple via their feedback. I know they won't respond, but at least they'll be informed.

Jun 23, 2006 11:05 AM in response to AppleTalker

I'm going to agree with Satoru above and say, if we are experiencing the same sound on different branded hard drives, then it must be something software/firmware related(?).

Something must be making the hard drives park their heads (regardless of the brand) at an increased rate during low activity.

Let us know what happens, though.

Occassional Thud + Hard Drive Whir?