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Mysterious clicking sound - help!

S

stevejobbers

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 19, 2008
80
0
My 2.4 alu macbook (1 month old) is making some strange noises. I'll describe it as best I can.

There is a faint (though sometimes loud) clicking sound coming from underneath the area under the Enter key. It happens once every 10 seconds or so, even when I'm not doing anything on the computer.

Is that where the hard drive is located? Could it be failing already? I haven't had any applications quit or any other strange behavior other than the noise itself.

Thanks guys!
 
I just tried "Repair Permissions", during which it didn't make the noise anymore, but as soon as it was done the noise started back up again every few seconds.

It's like it only makes the noise when the HDD is idle....?
 
stevejobbers said:
There is a faint (though sometimes loud) clicking sound coming from underneath the area under the Enter key. It happens once every 10 seconds or so, even when I'm not doing anything on the computer.

Is that where the hard drive is located? Could it be failing already? I haven't had any applications quit or any other strange behavior other than the noise itself.
Click to expand...

I had a clicking sound coming from my mid-2007 blackbook whenever I installed a new hard drive. The best explanation I could find online (even from a genius in-store) was that it was the 'head' of the hard drive parking. It was only really happening when I was doing nothing, just idle-ing.

Not sure where the hard drive on the new alu macbook is located though, so it may not be the same thing.

The 'solution' that I was given for my particular problem was just to let it be and get used to it, in my own words. Disabling the parking of the head just to get rid of the noise would only cause the hard drive to keep spinning at a faster speed even when the computer is doing nothing which would ultimately lead to a shorter life for my HD. (It's a couple of months ago since I had this explained to me, but the shorter life thing was the big punchline)

Having read the link given above, it kinda contradicts (well, completely) what I was told at the genius bar, so it's actually thrown a big spanner of doubt into my mind about the APM settings and whether it would be safe to alter them just to stop the clicking.

Any thoughts, guys?
 
My MBA clicks, but unlike that article described it's never repetitive, it'll "click" then won't "click" again for a while unless I immediately start doing heavy stuff. I think it's a pretty neat feature for saving battery life.
 
genius guys wrong, my blog/article is correct.

load_cycle_counts that go so high they surpass the HDD life expectancy in 18-24 months, or less! Load cycle counts increase every time the HDD parks its heads, which is quite often with the default OS X settings.

The Linux community had been on top of this issue for a long time, there is a lot written about this issue if you look outside the Mac-world.

heads park aggressively to save power and generate less heat, head parking does not, not is it intended to lessen drive wear, it increases it.
 
alright but really quick somebody really quick i've been getting a sound from my macbook too an to describe it, it sounds with out a doubt like if you were to tap two marbles together very gently. every say.. 10 20 seconds i hear it. concern?
 
EmptyCalm said:
alright but really quick somebody really quick i've been getting a sound from my macbook too an to describe it, it sounds with out a doubt like if you were to tap two marbles together very gently. every say.. 10 20 seconds i hear it. concern?
Click to expand...

Tht sound is exactly what is being discussed in this thread. That sound is a "feature." The feature is wonderful, it makes constant noises and kills your HDD in 24 months...great feature, right?

use hdapm to disable that feature if you want.
 
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