Loose fan leads to buzzing?

[BlaqkAudio]

So late last night, I was watching a DVD on my MBP while it was on my lap. I accidentally bumped it with my leg while getting up and it started making this annoying buzzing sound coming from the left upper corner. At first I though it was the superdrive spinning up, but I ejected the DVD and it continued to make a buzzing sound. After some Googling, I found that it was probably my fan making this sound. After a little bit of shaking, the noise stopped.

I left my MBP on overnight and when I woke up, I noticed that the buzzing returned. Again, I shook my MBP lightly and the buzzing stopped. I then booted into Windows and played some FPS games. After rebooting into OS X, I noticed the buzzing returned.

I concluded that my left fan must be loose, and that at a relatively high RPM, the fan must shake enough that a slight jostle will cause the fan to hit something, causing the buzzing sound. I tested my theory by using smcFanControl to amp up my fans to 4000 RPM and give my MBP a slight jostle and sure enough, the buzzing started.


I made an appointment at my local Apple Store's Genius Bar, so I'll see what the Genius says. Question is, if it does turn out to be a loose fan or whatever, how long can I expect repairs to take, and is this the kind of repair that can be done in store, or do they have to ship it to a service center?

 

[watermelon]

So late last night, I was watching a DVD on my MBP while it was on my lap. I accidentally bumped it with my leg while getting up and it started making this annoying buzzing sound coming from the left upper corner. At first I though it was the superdrive spinning up, but I ejected the DVD and it continued to make a buzzing sound. After some Googling, I found that it was probably my fan making this sound. After a little bit of shaking, the noise stopped.

I left my MBP on overnight and when I woke up, I noticed that the buzzing returned. Again, I shook my MBP lightly and the buzzing stopped. I then booted into Windows and played some FPS games. After rebooting into OS X, I noticed the buzzing returned.

I concluded that my left fan must be loose, and that at a relatively high RPM, the fan must shake enough that a slight jostle will cause the fan to hit something, causing the buzzing sound. I tested my theory by using smcFanControl to amp up my fans to 4000 RPM and give my MBP a slight jostle and sure enough, the buzzing started.


I made an appointment at my local Apple Store's Genius Bar, so I'll see what the Genius says. Question is, if it does turn out to be a loose fan or whatever, how long can I expect repairs to take, and is this the kind of repair that can be done in store, or do they have to ship it to a service center?

My macbook pro's fans had this problem, so I installed fan control (not smc) and set the fans to idle unless temps go above 90C, which has made the problem go away. It can be imagined that making the fans always idle would cause the computer to overheat, but heating problems are really exaggerated, and even handbreaking while video chatting with 3 people hasn't made my macbook pro go even near 90.