Late 2016 MBP 13" (no touch-bar) making popping sounds
Almost two weeks ago I purchased the baseline 13" ntb MBP (late 2016).
Almost 15 minutes out of the box the computer started making popping/cracking sounds. These sounds happen independent of eachother and occur maybe every 20-30 minutes at random.
The next day I did a live chat with Apple. They suggested resetting the laptop which 15 minutes later I realized hadn't fixed the issue. The next day I called AppleCare and was told to do the same. The sounds persisted.
Frustrated, I exchanged the computer for a new one expecting that the problem was unique to the computer. On the second computer the problem still occured, still at random. I exchanged it again, now onto my third laptop, and the problem still persisted.
I took the third computer into the genius bar. The genius couldn't replicate the problem in store and suggested buying the laptop from Apple since the first three laptops were bought from Best Buy on sale. He was suspicious the reduced price might indicate defective stock.
So after finally returning the third laptop, I bought one at the Apple store (same-specs) and found the sounds to still be happening, albeit more intermittently.
All computers were running the latest version of macOS. In all cases the problem seems to be happening at random. Some computers made the sound more often than others but all are making it. 9to5Mac has reported a similar problem, possibly because of thermal expansion, but all reports come from 15" models. Still the problem persists even when the Activity Moniter shows the CPU as almost completely idle.
9t05Mac article:
https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/12/macbook-pro-screen-popping/
Thank you for any help!
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016, 2 TBT3), macOS Sierra (10.12.4)