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Mpowerbook182

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 17, 2004
21
0
This is my 1st post on Mac Rumors (hope to be around for a while) I have come back to mac, though It's been a while since i have owned one (LCII), since then I have owend a couple sony vaio notebooks, which were ok, but i got real tired of the problems and windows. Anyway I now own a 15" PB 1.33 with 256mb, etc. and my questions are; is it normal for the hard drive when the room is completly silent to make a slight buzzing/whirling sound followed by a slight click or rattle every 5-10sec ? And is it normal when scrolling up and down in a window for it to sometimes pause for a split second? - would a ram upgrade fix that? Sorry for the dumb questions, I just want to keep my PB in perfect running condition since i plan on using it for a while.
 

Converted2Truth

macrumors 6502a
Feb 6, 2004
608
0
Hell@HighAltitude
I believe it's a crime to run OSX with only 256 mb ram. It needs at least 512 (1024 is more like it). I guess if all you do is browse the internet, that's overkill, but anyways...

You should not be experiencing choppy scrolling, especially when nothing else is going on. Considering that you have limited RAM(in my opinion) perhaps the hard drive is just making the routeen swapping rounds every 5 minutes, or maybe the hard drive is parked after 5minutes of inactivity, at which time you require it to activate. Check your energy saver stuff.

You're laptop should be running fairly smooth. If you're not satisfied, call tech and get it fixed/replaced.
 

KingSleaze

macrumors 6502
Feb 24, 2004
410
0
So. Cal
No. You shouldn't be hearing a routine click from a running hard drive.
A brief hang while scrolling is probable when memory is limited.
 

MacBandit

macrumors 604
I have a 15" AL Powerbook and the noise you are hearing from the hard drive is perfectly normal. It has to do with the power saving features of the drive Apple uses. It parks the read/write heats periodically to save power and thats the sound you are hearing.
 

Godfather

macrumors member
May 11, 2004
69
0
I agree, getting more ram will most likely solve the memory problem, and the clicking of HD is same here on my powerbook. Most think it's not, but they don't own Powerbooks and think clicking HD's is a bad sign.
 

cluthz

macrumors 68040
Jun 15, 2004
3,118
4
Norway
Mpowerbook182 said:
This is my 1st post on Mac Rumors (hope to be around for a while) I have come back to mac, though It's been a while since i have owned one (LCII), since then I have owend a couple sony vaio notebooks, which were ok, but i got real tired of the problems and windows. Anyway I now own a 15" PB 1.33 with 256mb, etc. and my questions are; is it normal for the hard drive when the room is completly silent to make a slight buzzing/whirling sound followed by a slight click or rattle every 5-10sec ? And is it normal when scrolling up and down in a window for it to sometimes pause for a split second? - would a ram upgrade fix that? Sorry for the dumb questions, I just want to keep my PB in perfect running condition since i plan on using it for a while.


Whem you have little RAM, OSX uses the HD as memory (virtual memory..), more memory will fix this for you!
It's very easy to upgrade the RAM in the powerbooks and you can do it yourself without voiding warranty.
I bought a 512MB stick from Crucial and installed it myself (bringing the p'book to 768MB) and after that everything ran much better :D
A 512MB stick shouldn't cost you more than ~$100.
btw, the pb uses PC2700(DDR333) (non buffered, non ECC) SO-DIMM
 

stephenli

macrumors 6502
Jul 1, 2004
286
0
Yes, i am sure too, it is the 256 MB RAM that matters. Buy a 512MB and you will experience a difference in speed.
I saw some "cooling platform" for Powerbook in japan. I am not sure if your place have such kind of things on sale. But if yes, it should help much while using it for long hours.
 

Mpowerbook182

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 17, 2004
21
0
Thanks for all the replies, I suspected the sound was normal as i could only hear it when the room was completely silent, I just wanted to make sure. As far as memory goes I am planing to add 1 gig from here http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-155-111&depa=0 this should make my computer run more smoothly and hopfully games will run better (I know The PB is not a gaming machine though) and also i hope scrolling wont lag anymore, only happens when im viewing things with lots of pictures, still bugs me though. Also i was just wondering if it is normal when waking my comp. from sleep to get balck and white boxes for a half second sometimes? Once again thanks
 

MacBandit

macrumors 604
Mpowerbook182 said:
Thanks for all the replies, I suspected the sound was normal as i could only hear it when the room was completely silent, I just wanted to make sure. As far as memory goes I am planing to add 1 gig from here http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-155-111&depa=0 this should make my computer run more smoothly and hopfully games will run better (I know The PB is not a gaming machine though) and also i hope scrolling wont lag anymore, only happens when im viewing things with lots of pictures, still bugs me though. Also i was just wondering if it is normal when waking my comp. from sleep to get balck and white boxes for a half second sometimes? Once again thanks

B/W boxes could be the system waiting for the hard drive to spool up because part of the system is being stored outside of RAM. My 15"Al does not due that but it has 512MB of RAM.
 
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