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27" iMac Hard Drive Noise

wesleyh said:
Anyone who got it exchanged, do you get to keep the old imac until the new one arrives? Don't want to be a week or more without it..
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Here in the UK, you have to send it back, before the new one arrives. I bought a BTO MBP last year when the unibodies first came out and a replacement one was a 3-4 week wait. I think you will find that due to demand you will have a wait on your hands.

Where I can I just buy from the Apple store (physical) to avoid all this shipping back and forth and waiting for a replacement, just walk in and get a new one.

I have heard of people being able to keep thier machine till the new one arrived but that was cause Apple messed up big time and the customer service rep was top notch, Good Luck :)
 
wesleyh said:
Anyone who got it exchanged, do you get to keep the old imac until the new one arrives? Don't want to be a week or more without it..
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Another way you can do it is to just return the imac and order a new machine. Two separate orders. You would have both machines on your CC until the return was processed.
 
Well, they're going to send a new one. They told me to tell the courier that I am in vacation for a week and a half or so when they call so that I will still have the imac until the new one arrives. The two things are separate from each other it seems. No assurance that it will not contain a seagate though.
 
Kronie said:
Another way you can do it is to just return the imac and order a new machine. Two separate orders. You would have both machines on your CC until the return was processed.
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That is exactly what I did. I did not want to explain everything to Apple Care all over again and ask them for a new delivery. I have a right to return any ordered items within 14days so I did just that and ordered another iMac at the Apple Online Store. I figured that this was the easiest way :cool: .

Well my new iMac with 2TB HDD (hopefully a quiet Hitachi) will be here in a few days... we'll see.
 
DFXThomas said:
That is exactly what I did. I did not want to explain everything to Apple Care all over again and ask them for a new delivery. I have a right to return any ordered items within 14days so I did just that and ordered another iMac at the Apple Online Store. I figured that this was the easiest way :cool: .

Well my new iMac with 2TB HDD (hopefully a quiet Hitachi) will be here in a few days... we'll see.
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My 'old' i7 was collected for refund today & new 2TB ordered-5 to 7 day despatch in UK gives me delivery not until the beginning of the 2nd week in December unfortunately.
 
i5 here also and the same thing is going on... During the day its fine, but when night comes around i want to shoot myself.. They better come out with a fix in the next 4 days. Thats when my 14 days expires
 
I am also having a noise issue with my 27 inch IMAC. It is a low level gurgling sound that comes and go. I contacted Apple tech support and they were in the dark about this issue and instructed me to keep an ear on it. The noise seems to abate somewhat the longer the computer is on. I don't find it that annoying but was more concerned about it being a sign of a early demise of the hard drive. Appreciated the comments from other forum members who have had similar problems.
 
bikejack said:
I am also having a noise issue with my 27 inch IMAC. It is a low level gurgling sound that comes and go. I contacted Apple tech support and they were in the dark about this issue and instructed me to keep an ear on it. The noise seems to abate somewhat the longer the computer is on. I don't find it that annoying but was more concerned about it being a sign of a early demise of the hard drive. Appreciated the comments from other forum members who have had similar problems.
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I used to work for Nikon and there is nothing the tech guys don't know about production problems, almost instantaneously. Apple must know about the issue and have probably already addressed it – for the benefit of upcoming production runs. For early buyers, they'll keep their traps shut and pretend nothing is amiss. They won't recall anything because they know a good proportion of buyers will be blind (or should I say deaf?) to the issue.

From my experience of the problem, the present batch should be withdrawn from sale – I have never heard such dire-sounding drives on a Mac.
 
I just run HandBreak and oooo my god, i can hear the hard drive in the other room:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:. This sucks
 
Oddly, I don't hear mine at all today. Almost like it had to break in or something. It wasn't loud, just that grumble low crunch that was subtle really but I was used to dead quiet from my white iMac. But while it might sound odd - I'm not hearing it today. And no I didn't get "used to" anything. I never get used to anything LOL.
 
rite now on my forth 27" all 4 have had the exact same noise coming from the drive......enough's enough im just going to live with it and keep my headphones on, with also my sunglasses!!!
 
Frenchie, were all 4 seagate drives? Perhaps ask for a free 2TB upgrade so you get a hitachi instead of the seagate.
 
wesleyh said:
Frenchie, were all 4 seagate drives? Perhaps ask for a free 2TB upgrade so you get a hitachi instead of the seagate.
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2 x WD and 2 x ST

would love a 2tb but all this agro is through the store so wont be able to get a 2tb version
 
frenchie0101 said:
rite now on my forth 27" all 4 have had the exact same noise coming from the drive......enough's enough im just going to live with it and keep my headphones on, with also my sunglasses!!!
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If you went through four machines as well as different drive manufacturers then I would bet its just a sound that the computer makes and not faulty drives.

I had this same problem with a certain dell monitor. It had loud backlight hum. so loud and annoying to me that I kept getting replacements, 6 of them and they all had the same hum. I finally gave up and just lived with it.

I heard about this monitor from a photography forum and its exactly like the 27" iMac in that some forum members can hear it and some cant, some hear it and don't care and to some, (like me) find the noise to be completely annoying.

If my replacement has the same HD noise as the old one I will probably just live with it for now.
 
frenchie0101 said:
rite now on my forth 27" all 4 have had the exact same noise coming from the drive......enough's enough im just going to live with it and keep my headphones on, with also my sunglasses!!!
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Hi Frenchie, wow four machines! So two were Western Digital and two were Seagate... All had noise... ugh... Well, I will say thank you for doing this testing!! Sounds like it is "normal" or at least widespread, and I guess we all have two options at this point:

1) Upgrade to the iMac with 2tb (which means ordering online versus an apple store purchase and I prefer apple store, also added expense - $250)

2) Hope that there is a future firmware update from Apple that can reduce the noise? Not sure if there is a complaint forum that apple uses for feedback?

Kronie, can you let us all know when you get your new iMac if you continue to hear the HD noise?
 
mdewberry said:
Hi Frenchie, wow four machines! So two were Western Digital and two were Seagate... All had noise... ugh... Well, I will say thank you for doing this testing!!
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That's all very nice, but the complaint originally expressed by Frenchie was: "lets say i open up iphoto it goes into a bit of frenzy..".
That's not the same as the constant chugging noise that many of us have reported, apparent even when opening a webpage or emptying the trash, or not even doing anything at all!
I am dubious of this input with regard to my own problems with the hard drive on the i5. But I'm pleased for Frenchie if he has solved his own dilemma.
 
KingMone said:
No problems at all here. 2 TB indeed. :cool:
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I too have the Hitachi 2TB hard drive. Very quiet. No grumbling noise. Top of the i7 iMac can get wicked hot though..... I'm thinking I'll buy the AppleCare just incase.
 
I can also confirm I have the Seagate 1TB hard drive and have to admit it does have a slightly disconcerting "rumble" just like a stomach "grumbling". It's not constant, when I'm browsing iPhoto or moving between web-pages I'll hear it. I'm not sure if I would have been that concerned about it if it wasn't for this forum flagging it up - most likely would have just accepted that it was the HD doing its thing. In all honesty I don't think it's a fault - just a slightly louder HD than one is used to but it does seem odd for Apple to overlook this noise issue after going to so much trouble in making this Mac pretty silent in every other way.

Am I going to return my iMac? This seems a pointless exercise as it just is what it is and my iMac is perfect in every other way (no dead pixels, silent fans etc.). One option would be get a refund and then wait it out until Apple possibly replace the Seagate drive in the manufacturing stage with a quieter HD. The other option would be to upgrade to a 2TB drive.

Ultimately I'll live with it but I will be interested to see how others get on and if Apple acknowledge it as an issue (not likely).

One final thought, does anyone think it may be an issue that could be addressed by a future Apple issued HD Firmware update?
 
spcdust said:
...does anyone think it may be an issue that could be addressed by a future Apple issued HD Firmware update?
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Not from the way it sounds to me. The noise I hear suggests a bad batch of hard drives. I definitely wouldn't want to hang on to one of these in the hope there might be a miracle firmware update.
 
Sir Cecil said:
Not from the way it sounds to me. The noise I hear suggests a bad batch of hard drives. I definitely wouldn't want to hang on to one of these in the hope there might be a miracle firmware update.
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Personally I don't even think it's a bad batch, just an above average hard drive in terms of noise (and to be frank it's not REALLY loud). Oh well, that's what Applecare and Time Capsule are there for in case of future failure.
 
If it's a bad batch, it would be nice to know when your imac shipped, so we can see if newer imacs also exhibit this problem.

Mine shipped on november 14th.
 
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