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)
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)
