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Occasional 'bleep' noises

D

daanodinot

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 26, 2015
393
1,013
I experience occasional bleep-like noises with my iMac. I have a 2015 4K iMac with 2TB Fusion Drive, so I was thinking that it might be the HDD. What do you think?

Here's a recording. (It's greatly amplified, so ignore the loud background noise.)
 
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It shows passed for both SSD and HDD, so yay! It's hard to describe (and record with an iPhone), but it definitely feels like a higher-pitched noise, and different from the constant HDD whirring.
 
Actually, I could hear the bleep -- sounded like a scratchy metallic sound that started at the highest peak about midway through the Soundcloud recording. No idea what might cause that.
 
bizzwriter said:
Actually, I could hear the bleep -- sounded like a scratchy metallic sound that started at the highest peak about midway through the Soundcloud recording. No idea what might cause that.
Click to expand...
Yes! That's exactly what I hear.
 
I've updated the recording, and it's much clearer now. (Recorded with the iMac itself, instead of my iPhone. Duh!)

I hope you can figure out what it is.
 
It happens quite irregularly; on average every few minutes or so. The noises don't seem to relate to what I'm doing, although I hardly do anything intensive.
 
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Sounds like a cricket in there. Not a familiar computer sound for me, either.

Even though you passed the SMART test it could still be the HD.

Another possibility is a fan bearing. I wonder if a fan-monitoring or controlling utility could help diagnose. You could set the fan speed to a lower setting (temporarily...just for testing) to see if the noise happens.
 
Is it worth contacting Apple about this? I still have two months of warranty.
 
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