uMBP June09 HD Beep

[DaNkKnD]

Hello,

I have a 15 inch uMBP from June of this year and I purchased it with the 7200 RPM 500GB hard drive. Initially I had a very mild case of the click/beep issue and this was essentially solved with the update but when I put my laptop to sleep and walk around with it closed, every step I take produces a beep noise from the HD (anti shock protection I'm guessing). Is this normal?

Also I sometimes (couple times a week) experience system hangs while surfing the web or doing other low cpu intensive tasks which strikes me as being odd since it's a pretty powerful machine. Could this be linked to the HD issue?

Thanks in advance!

Some System Specs:

- uMBP 15" 2.8Ghz with 4GB of ram
- 9600 GT 512MB vram
- 500GB 7200 rpm drive
- Snow Leopard 10.6.1

 

[madog]

There's been plenty of posts on this so that might be why no one replied to yours.

It's been a known and recognized problem by Seagate/Apple. They've released a firmware update for some of the problems, but I think overall Seagate just made a poor drive.

Your slow performance and hanging could be a result of the hard drive going bad (or being bad). Or it could be a result of the drive powering down after however long (maybe your reading a site for 30 minutes?) and hanging while it spins back up. If that's the case it can be changed in the energy saver system preference (if it's still there in SL).

 

[DaNkKnD]

I'm aware of the other posts which talk about the click/beep problem but none of them address the specific issue I'm speaking of which is the beeping when I'm walking... This concerns me since its supposed to a portable drive and shouldn't be saving its life with every step I take.

I've already disabled the hard drive feature which allows it to sleep.

If these issues aren't common then It will probably be best for me to take it to apple for a replacement drive (of another brand hopefully). I just want to make sure this isn't how its supposed to normally operate.

Thanks.

 

[madog]

I'm aware of the other posts which talk about the click/beep problem but none of them address the specific issue I'm speaking of which is the beeping when I'm walking... This concerns me since its supposed to a portable drive and shouldn't be saving its life with every step I take.

I've already disabled the hard drive feature which allows it to sleep.

If these issues aren't common then It will probably be best for me to take it to apple for a replacement drive (of another brand hopefully). I just want to make sure this isn't how its supposed to normally operate.

Thanks.

Didn't notice the walking part for some reason even though it was the main point of the post.

Yeah, it probably is the anti shock sensor. Sounds like it is malfunctioning unless one of you legs is a few feet longer than the other and it causes you to smash down with every other step.

If it's reproducable, I would take it to Apple and show them. While it may not effect the drives performance at all, it doesn't sound like something I'd want in my computer.

Also, they won't let you downgrade or upgrade drives. If they had a different brand of the same spec harddrive you might get one or the other, however, the technician wouldn't know until the part was opened in which case they pretty much have to use it by that point. Also, there are no other 7200 500gb 2.5mm laptop drives available to the public. Only Hitachi has one in for sale to OEM's although I don't think Apple uses them at the moment.

 

[DaNkKnD]

Reproducing the hangs will be difficult and hearing faint beeps in a noisy apple store will also be hard. I guess there's not point bothering them until they have more HD options. sigh

 

[madog]

Reproducing the hangs will be difficult and hearing faint beeps in a noisy apple store will also be hard. I guess there's not point bothering them until they have more HD options. sigh

If you decide on that then just know: If you end up accidentally physically damaging the machine, you won't be able to get warranty work done on this issue; don't wait if your warranty is almost up of course; and while you may not have a chance to get a different drive (even if they end up switching manufacturers which doesn't happen often) you're not bothering Apple if it's a malfunctioning part in a computer they made and sold you.

Don't feel bad going in there and explaining your case.