mid-2010 17" MBP Hard Drive or Fan dying?

[boredandlonely]

Sitting here working with left palm resting to left of trackpad, and the machine starts vibrating terribly directly under my left hand. If I recall, that's the Hard Drive location. Horrible rotational noise coming too, like a fan, only louder (I've had multi fans die in the past on multi machines).

I shut all my apps as fast as possible to save my work and backup my last few hours of work before shutting down ASAP. After I shut all my apps, the vibration/noise stops. It hasn't come back yet.

Assuming I am correct, and this is the hard drive, how long do I have?
If I am wrong, what is it?

Should I leave it running, or shut it down when not in use? Everything is double-backed-up nightly, but I'd still like to be cautious.

Thanks

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Assuming it's the hard drive

Sitting here working with left palm resting to left of trackpad, and the machine starts vibrating terribly directly under my left hand. If I recall, that's the Hard Drive location. Horrible rotational noise coming too, like a fan, only louder (I've had multi fans die in the past on multi machines).

I shut all my apps as fast as possible to save my work and backup my last few hours of work before shutting down ASAP. After I shut all my apps, the vibration/noise stops. It hasn't come back yet.

Assuming I am correct, and this is the hard drive, how long do I have?
If I am wrong, what is it?

Should I leave it running, or shut it down when not in use? Everything is double-backed-up nightly, but I'd still like to be cautious.

Thanks

Then you have a few hours at most by the sounds of it. Just replace the drive, preferably with an SSD for huge performance boost. Either way it is a very easy fix just replace the drive and restore from your backup anyone who can use a screwdriver can do it.

 

[boredandlonely]

maybe the fan?

Ok, it started up again and lasted longer this time. I shut my apps, and it stayed on. I had a little more time to examine and I'm fairly sure it's the Left Fan now. I shut down, started up, and the Left side is still red hot, but the noise is gone. I guess I will be replacing that instead?

I did Disk Utility "verify disk" and "repair permissions" with no unexpected results yesterday.
I added SMC Fan Control, and (with NO noise), I am showing 180d F, and 5521 RPM both sides.

I'd like to just order the part and do the fix, but I want some sort of confirmation before doing what may be needless. If the noise comes back I will check RPMs and Temp while active.

 

[boredandlonely]

Weren't there more replies here before? I'm confused.

Anyway, it's occurred again, and I had more time to tweak fan control as a test:
Despite the sound and vibration coming from the LEFT side, if I manually max out both fan rpms, the RIGHT side fan doesn't always get up to full speed. Additionally, if I apply pressure to the MIDDLE of lower open case, near hinge, I can minimize the noise/vibration.

So I'm still not certain if this is a LEFT or RIGHT, or even a fan issue. Sigh... Like I said, happy to repair this issue if I knew which one. But at this point I would have replaced 3 different parts.