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OMG! I can hear my mini breathing!!!

It was unusually quiet in my house and I was sitting peacefully on the couch when I heard something. Something ... breathing. It was a slow, quiet breath that was eerily stalking me as I sat there. Was I loosing my mind? No! Determined, I arose from my seat and tried to chase the sound around the room. Was it the ghost of the person who died in this house before I bought it? O ... M ... G ... Suddenly, I was drawn to something. My... my TV. I pressed my face up against it. The sound was definitely close. I moved down... down, further until I was almost on the shelf beneath it. But, all that was there was my mac mini - sleeping. Peacefully as ever. But ... that light. The breathing was inhaling and exhaling with every pulse of the small, white LED on the front. I could ... HEAR IT! Not just faintly but quite loudly. I swear I could capture the sound with a good microphone. Every single pulse of the LED omits a quiet, sinister, stalky, breath. I swear I didn't even see the light when I began to hear the noise. Is my mac mini ... possessed?!?!?


[serious question - what causes this LED modulation sound? thanks.]

Posted on Jun 29, 2015 5:27 PM

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7 replies

Jun 29, 2015 8:32 PM in response to applesOnDaBeach

I bet a tech-savvy friend set the computer up to play the breathing while asleep. (note, it is very hard to do this)


Try and disable power-nap first, see if the sounds go away.


Otherwise nuke from orbit (Backup, Erase, Start over fresh)


Archive the important data and apps to an external drive, erase the OS drive and then install a fresh copy of the Mac OS.

Jun 30, 2015 1:34 PM in response to chattphotos

It isn't *really* a breathing sound. It's more like I can hear the electrical noise emanating from the LED (or at least it's louder as the LED pulses) so it kinda sounds like the computer's breathing. At first I though the hard drive was spinning up and slowing down at the same speed as the light. I ask because I've never noticed it in the past. I wonder if maybe it gets louder as the LED gets closer to failure? The this is a 2009 model so it's starting to show it's age. I know LEDs last thousands of hours but I don't think it's ever been off since I owned it so... It's not noticeable when the TV is on so not really a big deal. I just hope it's not a sign that some component is about to fail. If so, I'd like to take preventive measures but I guess I'm the first one to experience this. :-/

Jun 30, 2015 2:14 PM in response to applesOnDaBeach

Record the sound, post it accordingly.


HDD's don't spin up/down like that, it's not efficient and will wear it out faster.

They are either on at the standard RPM or powered down in sleep mode.


Also LED's don't make any noise and generally last 10 years or more, so it's something else like an inverter or power controller.


With inverters for driving big LED arrays (think LCD displays) those can make some weird sounding electrical noise.

OMG! I can hear my mini breathing!!!

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