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Imac 27 High pitch noise

adammjenkins said:
I am on my 3rd iMac with this same problem, only mine have been accompanied with a sporadic buzzing noise which is also associated with the screen brightness, which is more prominent if the computer is running a little hotter. I recently attempted to get a refund altogether just because I am tired of the headache and lugging this monster around, but get this: after 3 faulty machines (as diagnosed by an Apple Care senior advisor), the engineering department placed a necessity on this computer to be physically inspected by an Apple-certified technician. The closest Apple Retail Store is almost 2 hours from my home. So if I take it, come back home, and then have to make an entire other round trip to pick the thing back up, that's 8 hours of driving, gas, wear and tear on my car, plus managing to get the time off work to take this thing in AT MY EXPENSE. Somehow, this doesn't seem right.

I must say, though, I've had a great experience with Apple's phone tech support through Apple Care. However, once the case was handed over to Customer Relations, my entire experience turned sour. All the while through the technical support, I kept being told that "there should be no noises associated with adjusting the screen brightness." My ultimatum is to either a. make the drive as described above, b. Fex Ex it to them (AT MY EXPENSE), or c. live with the noise, worry about long-term failure, and sell the thing once Apple Care is up. I am so completely disgusted with this multiple-month long situation that I am opting for the latter choice.

I wish anyone else trying to get their machine that have this issue repaired/replaced the best of luck. I certainly haven't had it. :mad:
Click to expand...

Hey Adam I share your pain. Had pretty much the same experience, except that I didn't have to go quite as far for the "Certified Apple Tech" to check it (We have a couple of these guys on campus where I work- they sometimes call me for advise on some problems that stump them <g>)

-Most of my problems on the replacement notsomerry-go-round related to the crappy displays on the 21.5" model. It wasn't until I gave up on the 21.5" and upgraded to the 27" that I got to experience the dog whistle "feature".

But man, that customer relations dept. - what a joke. I had a lady screaming and swearing at me (and calling me a liar, I might add) as I was trying my best to calm her down. WTF?

I have the whistle "noted on my file", and when I have another 2 months to waste trying to get a decent iMAC (probably next summer) they hopefully will have a record of the fact I noticed the issue right away. Guess I'll used the old "car with squeaky brakes" fix for now - crank up the radio and try to ignore the high pitch dog whistle - at least the screen is much better ! :)


-Iamthinking
 
Apple care advice

I have a (new) 21.5" iMac with high frequency noise problem. I called Apple support and they said its due to static buildup. He advised me to do a couple resets and it worked. No more annoying dog whistle. thank god!

First, a hard reset where I shut down the computer and unplugged everything from back: power cord, ethernet cable, etc. Wait a minute, then plug it back in and turn on.

Second, reset the parameter RAM. This one is tricky. Shut down iMac. When power is off, press and hold Command, Option, P and R keys at same time. Then hit power button. Hold all four keys until you hear the second startup sound. Detailed instructions posted here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

Good luck
 
Update

I finally got a "genius" to hear the whistle; he offered a replacement and I agreed. You'd think after 3 crappy machines, I would have learned my lesson. The one I'm on now has a dog whistle more pronounced than the last and a bunch of other issues as well. The machine makes a ticking sound when powered off (that's right, OFF), the bluetooth file transfer is incredibly slow (not sure if this is a hardware problem), the machine refuses to go to sleep automatically (this either), and, perhaps worst of all, it's got the ugly yellow tinge--most apparent in the bottom left hand corner.

I packed the bad boy up and took it all the way back to the retail store, thinking that the problems would be easy enough to demonstrate. I spoke to two geniuses, mostly about the tinge (while the other stuff is annoying, I edit photo/video professionally...I wanted them to just fix the tinge on this machine so that I could move on with my work and my life). The first "genius" told me that the newer models had a firmware update that solved the tinge problem (turns out this is not true). I tried to demonstrate the problem, and it wasn't working out--the "genius" couldn't see the subtle variation. He called another technician out to take a look and what followed was the most ridiculous corporate display I've witnessed in all my years as a consumer. I pulled up gray-barred test pages that clearly illustrated the nasty tinge across the bottom half, and watched two adult men pretend that they didn't see what I was talking about. I got one of them to concede that there could be a slight variation, but he claimed that it disappeared when he was looking at the screen perpendicularly (which is funny, because the only time I notice the tinge is when I look at the screen perpendicularly).

The genius told me that the machine would pass all their spec tests, and that he couldn't exchange or return it without charging me a restocking fee. He said if I did decide to exchange it, it would be a gamble, and that the new machine could have problems that I considered even worse (yeah tell me about it). Then he told me that I should feel lucky that I don't have any dead pixels or other anomalies. WTF?

I didn't even bother mentioning the other problems. I took my machine and left. The return date has come and gone and I think I'm stuck with this machine...my 3rd replacement and by far the worst iMac I've brought home in this horrible horrible experience.

Don't buy this model and, if you can avoid it, don't buy Apple products.
 
I to is VERY dissapointed about this issue.

I just got an iMac 27" with the high pitch whine.

It got repaired, the LED board got changed, and i got i back with the same whine :-S

Im returning the machine for a refund, which is very sad, since i really like the machine. I guess i must settle with my 3 year old 24" with almost no bleeding on the screen....sigh...

Just a question for OP. You guys reckon that

http://www.kaisertech.co.uk/acatalo...Plastic_Seal_60_65_Conformal_Coating_476.html

could solve the issue? You often spray PSUs with plastic coat to eliminate high pitch vibrating.

It could be worth a shot?

I was hoping OP could answer this with his electronic background.

Thanks a bunch
 
Saw this thread when my iMac started having problems. Now that it's been fixed (again), I thought I'd share my experiences. Kinda long but please bear with me.

In mid-December 2011, the Seagate 1TB HD failed in my late 2009 27" 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 iMac. Besides a bad HD, the Apple store technician tested and diagnosed other problems; namely, a bad power supply unit and bad internal cords. The parts were replaced ([sigh] yes, another Seagate 1TB HD was installed) and, just before 2012 began, I got the iMac back home. As soon as it powered on, a buzzing sounded from the left back side. Whenever the monitor's brightness was increased, the buzzing noise increased in volume. At maximum brightness, the noise was louder than the nearby stereo radio set at speaking voice volume. I forget where I read (maybe on the Apple support forum?) the suggestion to remove the power supply cord and then re-plug it in, which for one guy helped resolve his buzzing noise. So I tried it and much to my horror and disgust, the iMac would not power on. This failure to power on happened only a few hours after the repaired iMac was home. Finally after about an hour of trying, the iMac powered on. But then over the next few days the buzzing noise worsened.

Since in initially coming to the Genius Bar and then picking up my iMac I had met with bad experiences ((1) the "genius" who confirmed that the HD was failing and suggested I take the iMac home to try to salvage my data also managed, in repacking the iMac in its box, to leave the power cord behind the Genius Bar counter (and of course none of the geniuses called my cell phone to inform me that they had it), which necessitated another round-trip to the Apple store; (2) the store threw away my iMac box, with Styrofoam inserts; and then (3) the store manager insisted I never brought in the iMac with its box because, he said, it was store policy that OEM boxes were not accepted with Apple products brought in for repairs. (The "genius" who did the intake told me to leave the mouse, keyboard and power supply cord at home when I next dropped off the iMac; he never said anything about leaving the box home too.) If the manager (and I recognized him as formerly being a store "genius") had had the sense to apologize instead of telling me that "we will be civil" and then to imply I was a liar in insisting I brought my iMac in its box, I would not be writing this screed. Worse, he compounded his bad customer service by threatening to ban me from the store when I suggested in passing to a woman, waiting with her boxed 27" iMac by the store entrance, that she not bring her iMac in its box for repairs because the box will be thrown out like mine was), I decided to go to a non-Apple store authorized repair shop. Surprisingly this shop was closer to my home than the Apple store (found its information on the Apple website). The second repair shop technician diagnosed not only a bad power supply unit (remember, the bad one had just been installed by an Apple store tech), he also determined that the buzzing was coming from a defective LED backlight board. Those parts were replaced and now my iMac is once again back home, safe and quiet.

Oh, and in removing the display glass from the iMac's monitor, the Apple store tech left dirt specks under the glass. So of course in processing my RAW and JPEG files, I found myself trying to remove those specks until I realized that a Photoshop brush was not going to make them go away. Anyway and much to my delight, the second repair shop made sure to wipe the brown specks from the glass.

Truly it is wonderful to find a non-Apple store authorized repair shop that not only listens to its customers and treats them with respect, but also does good and prompt repair work. Thank you, macVolks of Concord, California.
 
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My iMac started to make that unbearable hi-pitch whine sound as well (had it for 1 year).

There is no way to work with this, extremely disappointing.

Days will be wasted again to get this fix, that is if I don't fall on a bunch of incompetents.
 
I have a C2D 21.5 imac

I tried to reset bios, to deactivate de second core of the cpu, play with the light, sound. Nothing worked except that I sticked some headphones in the lineout. The beep went out but no more speakers.

Please lmk if this solved your problem too so I can share with other people that have the same problem:)
 
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