There's a hamster in my Mac Pro

[stimpycat]

Hi - it sounds like there is a small hamster on a wheel away inside my Mac Pro and it's driving me nuts - it's a high pitched noise but low enough to not be obvious but high enough to be a real annoyance.

Any ideas how to fix it? It's only 3 months old but I don't want to return it and be without computer for 3 months (it's a work machine)

 

[bozigle]

i would save all important files from the hard drive onto an external one... just in case...

other than that you can leave seeds on the keyboard to get the beast out of there.

 

[pknz]

What a letdown.

 

[stimpycat]

Further to this - I have tried to verify my HD (the one that the OS is on) it comes up with this.



Is that normal for a 3 month old drive? And more importantly what the devil does it mean!

 

[joegomolski]

There's a hamster in my Mac Pro

Maybe, please not to panic.

Do you have another bootable HD in your system?

If so boot from that disk. Then run disk utility, and repair the drive.

If you don't have another bootable HD, insert your Leopard install disk, reboot from that disk. Start the install. When you see utilities in the task bar, click, and select disk utilities.

You can not repair the volume you are booted from.

Maybe this, will now be working.

 

[stimpycat]

Thaknk - my disks now verify but the hamster noise is still there.

It's intermittent and seems to come on when the computer is idling (although it comes on at other times) - I think it's lower down than the drives, somewhere behind the USB ports on the front.

What are my options here? It's annoying the hell out of me and so want it fixed, but can't really spare time not having a computer (business)

 

[irishgrizzly]

How old is your machine? Did you install the HD yourself?

 

[Hmac]

Thaknk - my disks now verify but the hamster noise is still there.

It's intermittent and seems to come on when the computer is idling (although it comes on at other times) - I think it's lower down than the drives, somewhere behind the USB ports on the front.

What are my options here? It's annoying the hell out of me and so want it fixed, but can't really spare time not having a computer (business)

My first guess would be fan noise rather than imminent hard drive failure, but I certainly would back up the drive ASAP.

You might consider downloading SMC fan control and changing various fan speeds to see how that affects the noise. You might be able to isolate the noise to a bearing failure in one fan and replace it yourself for not much money.

 

[stimpycat]

How old is your machine? Did you install the HD yourself?

Abotu 3 months old - it was a refurb

 

[stimpycat]

My first guess would be fan noise rather than imminent hard drive failure, but I certainly would back up the drive ASAP.

You might consider downloading SMC fan control and changing various fan speeds to see how that affects the noise. You might be able to isolate the noise to a bearing failure in one fan and replace it yourself for not much money.

Did what you said and doesn't change it so guess it aint a fan.