Periodic clunk/bong noise.

Question

Level 1

5 points

Periodic clunk/bong noise.

I have a new 2.16GHz 15" MacBook Pro, and it's working great. On the plus side, I don't have any hint of a high-pitched whine.

I do, however, have this crazy little clunk/bonk noise coming from the leftish side of the machine once every 30-60 seconds. I only noticed it recently during a quiet period in the office. (My sound is off, so it's not something from the speakers, it's something coming from inside the Mac.)

It doesn't seem to happen all the time; but during common activities such as web browsing or mail-reading, it's there bonking along every 30 seconds or so.

Everything's working fine, but what the **** IS that? It's really unnerving. I've found other posts on the web referring to this problem, but no real answer to what's causing it. Is this worth a trip to the store, or is this expected (though annoying) behavior?

MacBook Pro 15" Core Duo 2.16GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Aug 30, 2006 8:59 AM

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Answer 1

NickFro

Level 2

295 points

Aug 30, 2006 9:08 AM in response to Tobiah Smith

It is probably your hard drive (particularly if it is a 7200RPM model) and is perfectly normal...if annoyingly loud.

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Answer 2

Tobiah Smith Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 30, 2006 9:10 AM in response to NickFro

It is probably your hard drive (particularly if it is
a 7200RPM model) and is perfectly normal...if
annoyingly loud.

Thanks! Knowing it's expected at least calms my fears that my data's going to evaporate at any second.

Any idea what that is, exactly? I can't imagine it's sleeping/waking up that often.

P.S. I'm in Pittsburgh as well. Small world.

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Answer 3

Aug 30, 2006 10:04 AM in response to Tobiah Smith

I have the exact same sound and I've been wondering what it is. Before today I haven't found anyone else that has talked about it. It's not terrible, just a little annoying in a quiet place. Mine comes from the left side, not related to speakers, just like yours. If it's the hard drive, then I guess thats fine. Would turning off the "put the hard disk to sleep when possible" option help?

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Answer 4

Aug 30, 2006 10:25 AM in response to Homestar06

Mine does that too! I have "put the hard disk to sleep when possible" unchecked and it still does it, though.

I can't figure out what it is either, haha.

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Answer 5

Aug 30, 2006 7:18 PM in response to Tobiah Smith

I have it too and after reading around some people think it is the hard drive heads "parking up" - basically the HDD's used in the MBP can make this clunk noise quite regularly, but not all of them do. In fact most don't, apparently. Anyway, I am not too worried, but for piece of mind I asked the techs to take a look at the same time as they sort my MLB out.

One thing you could do to doubly put your mind at rest is check out the S.M.A.R.T status in the disk utility. If that is all ok then there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

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Answer 6

Sep 9, 2006 9:46 PM in response to Tobiah Smith

After doing some more searching in forums I've found some solutions to the problem. Apparently making the ":" flash on your clock will stop it and there is a program out there that will do it too. I cannot testify to these working but there are people who have. I'm going to try it. My clunking sound varies from time to time. It was going crazy earlier but now it has stopped. Hopefully this helps.

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Answer 7

Sep 9, 2006 11:24 PM in response to Tobiah Smith

Hi Everyone,

Download the mirror widget and the knocking will go away. When the Mirror is on, just click on th "i" in the bottom left corner. The iSight will go off, but the program is stil processing and stope the knocking. Every time you restart your MBP, you will need to start up the widget.

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