2011 MacBook Pro is making a weird noise

My late 2011 MacBook Pro has started making this weird noise at random times today. It has done this twice (EDIT: three times, it just happened again), and the second time I recorded it with my phone. The fan on these things is in the middle near the screen hinge. Yet, the sound itself seems to be coming from the left side where the charging port and USB ports are. A restart, sometimes a hard reboot, makes the sound go away. But shutting the sound up isn't fixing the problem, especially if it's just going to come back again.

Any ideas? Here is the video, might want to turn the volume up a little, my Nexus 4 has a very focused mic apparently.

 

How do I do that? The resetting part. Is that where I hold CMD+Opt+something+something at startup?

 

Thank you, I'll give it a try. In the mean time, if this even means anything, so far I've only heard this sound when the computer is unplugged from its power cable. It hasn't happened yet with it plugged in.

 

Unfortunately that didn't solve the issue. It started right up with that noise shortly after performing both of those actions.

 

I can confirm that this issue has nothing to do with the speakers, lol. It just kicked on again.


I was hoping not to have to talk it to the Apple Store, as the closest one is an hour away. I guess I'll be making a road trip out of it.

 

If anyone is still reading this thread, I think I have confirmed what some have thought of to be the cause of the issue. I downloaded iStat Menus and checked out different things when the sound kicked in. Turns out, under normal circumstances, my exhaust fan hovers around 1900-2000rpm. When the sound occurs, it's ranging between 300-700rpm. Yeah, not even breaking 1000. I also let it go, seeing what would happen if I did. Eventually the fan went back up to normal speed and the sound stopped. But the sound itself wasn't a gradual increase in frequency to where you can't hear it anymore, it was a sudden stop. So I dunno.

If my vision is goo enough to make the trip (I recently had eye surgery) to the Apple Store, I might go tomorrow. My MacBook Pro is out of it's 1 year warranty, so I would probably be expecting a hefty repair cost, huh?

 

Because this zombie of a thread was made back in March of last year.


And in a odd coincidence, as of this afternoon I no longer own that laptop.

 

I already stated what the problem was, a fan was unbalanced. Likely due to dust build up or something.

It's not too difficult to figure that one out. I understand what you are getting at, but at the same time I felt that my video had served its purpose, as did this thread.


So for future people that came across this thread (and good on you for using the search button), it sounded kinda like sticking a baseball card in the spokes of a bicycle, just not as loud.