Strange hoise from my iMac

[silvine]

There's a faint clicking noise coming from the top left corner of my iMac. I opened the machine, cleaned it for dust and secured all wires but the noise is still occurring. What could cause this?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

What exact iMac? Can you record the sound and maybe pin-point the noise more accurately?

 

[Antares]

What other moving part can cause that noise? Fan or hard drive or...?

Like simsaladimbamba said, provide more details if you have them.

 

[silvine]

It's a 2010 27 inch imac. I can hear the noise when sitting at my machine. that said, the noise is faint and originates from the top left corner of the imac. When I press my ear to the machine it's quite audible. It only occurs when machine is powered on. BTW when I say left I mean the opposite side of the optical drive.


I can't hear it from any other area of the machine and it's definitely not the HDD or optical drive. I opened the imac and there are no fans along the top left corner. I also got rid of dust and stuck wires down. The noise definitely didn't occur when I first purchased the mac.

 

[silvine]

I think it's the rear fan behind the stand. What's the best way to clean this?

 

[Viking23]

With a fine brush, or an can or air to blow the dust out. Or it could be a dry bearing on the fan!

 

[silvine]

Is a dry bearing hard to fix?

 

[silvine]

I don't think it's from the top left after all. It's seems to be echoing around the inside of the case. I've attached a recording. I tried turning up and down the fan using SMC but it didn't make any difference to the noise.

Could it be a failing HDD?

 

[aPple nErd]

if it was the top right, it could be the hard drive because my iMac makes noises in the hard drive when booting and when going to sleep

 

[silvine]

if it was the top right, it could be the hard drive because my iMac makes noises in the hard drive when booting and when going to sleep

I think it's an echo coming from the stock hdd. Time for an SDD I think!