My new iMac's HD sounds like a lawnmower!

D

Dlatu1983

Prime Minister
I got a new 17' iMac yesterday...as soon as I got home, I noticed that every once in a while, (not when it's spinning up, just randomly), it makes a loud searching sound, like when you save something to a floppy. It's loud enough to cause me to worry. There's also a fairly loud scratching noise...anyone have any idea what it could be?
 
Well as you can see I have an LCD iMac too, and I get noises too, but that's just when I'm browsing the internet for a long time (not hard for the cpu) and then if I copy a file to my iPod, the cpu all of the sudden "wakes" (not from a sleep, but from not doing anything in a while) and that makes a lot of noise for a few seconds. If this is what you're getting, don't worry about it. Otherwise, I dunno.
 
Well, I just got rid of my 15" imac, and it was all but silent. The new one makes noise at random intervals, it seems, and it's freaking me out. I dont want to have to be backing up every night.
 
Yes, some HDs can be a little clanky, but can be entirely normal, but noisy. You may like to have it checked out. take it to an Apple tech somewhere, so you can be sure it's normal HD noise, and not leading to quick failure. I hav two iMacs, one (the older one) I rarely hear anything. The other has a constant light whine, and I can hear every movement of the read/write heads. The newest is 2 years old and has always been that noisy. But have yours checked out, it's really up to you to complain if it's too noisy, and have it replaced. :)
 
I have the 17" iMac and I rarely hear any noise. It is slow to copy to a zip at times, but that is the only complaint I have.

It is new - have it checked out. A noise that is that bothersome may be a hint of a problem that can be fixed under warranty.
 
Originally posted by Dlatu1983
I got a new 17' iMac yesterday...as soon as I got home, I noticed that every once in a while, (not when it's spinning up, just randomly), it makes a loud searching sound, like when you save something to a floppy. It's loud enough to cause me to worry. There's also a fairly loud scratching noise...anyone have any idea what it could be?
Click to expand...

Sounds more like it's the optical station. Try ejecting any CD or DVD you have in the drive :)
 
I'm not stooooopid :p lol. It's desinately the HD. It sounds like it's writing something to disk...just over a loudpeaker:p
 
Originally posted by Dlatu1983
I'm not stooooopid :p lol. It's desinately the HD. It sounds like it's writing something to disk...just over a loudpeaker:p
Click to expand...

We'll, if not stooooopid, you could still be reeeaally stopid, so did you try ejecting that CD? :p
 
haha...there's no CD in there. I know the difference. It's not a CD being read...it's the search sounds of the hard drive....it dawned on me to try and disable the "put hard drive to sleep when possible" feature...I've never used that setting on any other my other systems before, and who knows, perhaps it's sleeping and waking up from sleep during use. Either way, that doesn't explain why it does it in the middle of the night. Or why it's so damn LOUD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top