OS X :: Strange Noises Coming From System / High Pitched Noise Near The Keyboard
Mar 27, 2009
I have a Macbrook Pro, one generation old. In the past week, it started making a high pitched noise from the upper left hand corner, near the keyboard. When I pick the computer up and change the angle, I can eliminate the noise.
Just in the past day I noticed that in addition to this high pitched noise, periodically a much louder, different noise comes from the same area, which again, if I move the computer around, I can minimize the noise.
My guess is that there is something loose in the computer, maybe a fan? Should I bring it to apple? My computer has been running pretty slow lately, could this have anything to do with it?
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Feb 1, 2009
I have a 1.86ghz 128GB SSD Rev B Macbook Air. The first one I had made a high pitch whining noise when the processor was idling or under light load. It was a very very high frequency noise, and you could only really hear it when the room was totally quiet - or unless you put your head near the top left side of the keyboard (where the CPU is located). A bit of googling and it seemed that older Macbook Pros also seemed to have had this exact problem.
I took it to the Apple Store and a Genius there took it back and said he could hear it as well. He offered to go through the repair process but since that would have taken awhile, I got an exchange instead from where I bought it from. Unfortunately, this new MBA also makes the same noise but to a slightly lesser degree (though it's possible that the frequency range isn't as high so it's not as piercing... hard to tell though).
Since this is my second RevB Macbook Air with the problem. I realize most people have lower noise sensitivity than me, so you might not notice it unless you place your ear to the top left of the keyboard. (And just to be clear, this is not a fan noise or a noise from the SSD - which don't make noises anyways. I am 100% sure this high pitched noise is coming from the CPU or somewhere on the logic board.)
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Dec 21, 2010
I recently purchased a gently used MacBook. Running 10.5.8. The computer sounded and operating perfectly until I made the following software updates:
MAC OS X Update Combined
iTunes
QuickTime
Security Update 2010-007
Remote Desktop Client Update
Airport Base Station Update
iLife Support
Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 5
Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 8
Safari
FrontRow
Airport Utility
Now I have an annoying hum noise, that could possibly be the fan.I have run Disk Utility, but the annoying hum noise remains. Does anyone have any suggestions before taking this by an Apple Store.This was intended as a Christmas gift for my wife. Can anyone spare me the embarassment?
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Oct 25, 2009
I have just discovered that there are strange noises from my 21.5" iMac (1TB, ATI 4670).I have no idea where do the noises come from (maybe harddrive?)
Can anyone can tell me?
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Dec 26, 2010
This is my first post, and I apologize as it's a little long. I just wanted to get the whole story on the table and clarified.I've had one of the new Aluminum 13" MacBooks (2.0GHz C2D) since Christmas Eve. A few weeks ago, it accidentally fell off my desk at work (not a far drop , but far enough for my heart to stop for a few minutes) when I got tripped up in the power cord under the desk.
For all intents and purposes, the MacBok seemed to work fine. I had one of our IT staff, who happened to be a trained Apple repair tech, take a look at it; the only real damage was that the display hinge had been knocked a little out of alignment. Just ot be on the safe side, I took the machine to the Apple Store, where they told me not to worry about attempting to get the hinge fixed (because I'd be paying a lot of money for such minor work), and the Genius sold me a hardcover plastic Speck case for the MacBook.
While the Speck case certainly looked nice and madethe already sturdy laptop feel sturdier and "protected", I was a little concerned about the amount of heat the machine was giving off within the case. On Sunday, I unplugged the machine from the MagSafe charger for a few hours and left it closed in sleep mode. When I woke it back up, the fan on the left continually gave off some sort of high-pitched whine whenever the computer was in idle mode.
I Googled, searching this site and others, and read about the "CPU whine" in the previous generation MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I also saw where a few people with new Aluminum MacBooks were having this same issue or something similar:
URL
It seems to only make the noise when the computer is running off of the battery - plugging in the MagSafe charger makes the noise quiet 85% of the time (I've found that plugging, unplugging, and replugging will not stop the whine from occurring).
I tried installing QuietMBP as was recommended in some posts, but the only setting that will stop the computer from whining is the "highest" setting (that is, allowing the processor 0 seconds of idle time), which causes QuietMBP to eat up 30% of my processor usage in Activity Monitor and to start the fans going (and, presumably, to significantly lower my battery life).
I don't know whether all of this was the result of the MacBook falling, from it overheating in the case, or something that "just happened". I set up an appointment with the Genius bar for today at 4 PM, but Idiscovered another odd occurance when I set up a new account for the Apple Store (rather than give them my password)
The noise never happened under the new account. Never. I left the machine idle until any and all initial processes were done. No noise. I checked Activity Monitor for stray processes. None. And no noise.
Now I'm bewildered. Could something have gone wrong somewhere in my account, leading to a corruption of a power management utility or process? I'm not canceling my appointment, but I am going to try a few things before I leave. I've already repaired disk permissions, and I'm about ot reinstall the 10.5.6 OS X combo update. Should I try to reset the PRAM too? What other options should I be looking at?
Or should I just wait, and let the Genius Bar folks look into it? As a note, I'm aware I may have to pay for any repairs because they may or may not blame them on the MacBook having dropped (despite two to three weeks passing between the fall and this issue arising), and I'm okay with paying for reapirs (though I will try my best to argue my case, of course).
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Jan 6, 2011
just got happy about the fix for the audio / performance problem of the 09 mac pro's. Why should it be different, the next problem knocks at my door, hallelujah...
When I connect my external audio interface (apogee ensemble) to my mac pro, the mac begins to whistle...
As soon as I turn off my interface again, the whistle is away immediately . The sound is definitively coming from my mac pro and I couldn't locate the problem to a fan. I think it's maybe the firewire controller chip? When I connect my external lacie HD I have no problems at all. I have tried it on both ports on the back side with no success.
The whistle is not constantly on the same noise level. Sometimes it's away for a few seconds, it's high pitched and really annoying though. It does not matter if I playback audio or not. Nothing worked though. I experienced the whistle in the past few months sometimes but it was mostly just for a few minutes or so. But in the past few days it was constantly and it never really stopped. This drives me crazy when I have no audio playing and my room is silent !!
I have no other firewire cable (400 to 800) around to test it. Could this be the culprit also?
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Dec 27, 2010
ive had a look around an only found bits an pieces relating to this but nothing really specific.i have an imac 3.06ghz, 4gb memory. less than a year old its been making some noises recently (like a downloading sound for afew seconds every so often) which happens every 30 seconds or so. this happens even when theres no programs open and im not connected to the internet!!! ive only really noticed it doing this the last month or so to be honest.
the computer has also been re-formated about a month ago as it was passed onto me from a family member, an im wondering if its got anything to do with that?is this a normal thing for macs an maybe i just havent noticed it before, or does it sound like something is wrong??
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Dec 25, 2010
I have a June 2010 17" 2.66 i7 UMBP. This is going to sound really silly and I do not really know how to describe it correctly, but it has begun to make lots of strange "Tapping/Clicking" noises. It happens quite regularly when the notebook is stationary but increase whenever the notebook is moved.
I am familiar with the hard drive clicking noise but this is totally different - it kind of sounds like a small metal ball-bearing inside a small, thin glass sphere knocking or clicking against it's side or like tapping a small thin glass object with something like a thin metal rod.
I am sorry for the poor description but that is the best way I can describe it & know I must sound like a complete idiot but I am not very savvy to computer issues but I hope someone can identify what these noises are if if they mean that something bad is going on.
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Jun 18, 2008
Hey guys, got a little issue here. I have had a MBA since about march of this year. Just recently I on two occasions the computer has all of a sudden had this loud high pitch whine. It has only happened twice and at both times (if I remember the 1st time correctly) I wasn't really doing anything on the computer. Today specifically it was just sitting idle on my desk. Not sure where its coming from maybe speakers? Any idea to what this is? Should I be setting up an appointment to see a Mac Genius?
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Aug 17, 2010
If you're having this problem, try adjusting your brightness. I was experiencing this issue today, and depending on where my brightness slider was... it got worse, better, to non-existant.
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Oct 22, 2007
iMac CD 1.8 here. W/e using my iMacs internal Mic I get a really high pitched noise on the recording. I'm assuming its from the computer. Is it normal or should I get it fixed?
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Jul 1, 2009
It's the 2008 model MacBook Pro with the 9600m gt 512 card.
So, I just noticed that when I have my MacBook Pro in High Performance mode it emits an high pitched noise when the fans are running around 6.2k RPM and the CPU and GPU is around 63c. The noise follows the speed of fans, and at idle the noise is gone.
I have uploaded a video of it on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HioRgTNpNRA
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Oct 24, 2009
I just bought and received a new 21.5'' iMac and love it but the screen is making a high pitched noise, similar to a dog whistle. It's that sound that isn't loud but pierces through your brain. And the brighter the backlight is, the louder is gets. I love this machine but I don't think it should be doing this and it bothers the heck out of me. I called Apple and all they said was to bring it to the Genius Bar.
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Nov 20, 2009
My 13" Macbook Pro has started making an odd, high-pitched noise, kinda like one of those 'mosquito' ringtones. It's pretty quiet so I can only hear it at night when the computer is beside my bed on the nightstand. However it's odd in that, it's always present UNLESS I scroll in Firefox. As long as I'm scrolling in Firefox, the sound stops. It seems to be coming from the left side of the computer.
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Jul 29, 2010
Just got my new i7 in the mail today after waiting for the refresh for 5 months and it has that stupid high pitched noise that you get when you adjust the brightness. I returned four of these things at the beginning of the year (2 HD failures, 1 power source failure, 1 DOA), one that had the hd failure also had this same high pitched noise.
I love these computers (minus the complete lack of quality control), so I don't want to switch back to PC, but I am at my wits end here. Apple already gave me $150 off this computer for me trouble, but I just don't know if its worth the hassle anymore. I am returning it for sure, but would you ask for more compensation, maybe a ram upgrade or something? I don't like to be the guy who asks for free crap, but the way I see it, they can give me another hundred $, or I can go back to pc and they lose a customer for life.
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Sep 10, 2010
Just accidentally rolled my MacBook Pro over a chair (About the height a little over one MacBook Pro's screen) while it was inside it's case.)
I then later found that it had strange DVD drive noises after the drop-There were 2-3 DVD grinding noises longer than the usual grinding noise at the beginning of a startup.
Is my DVD drive now dead?
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Nov 2, 2007
I have a PowerBook G4 15" Laptop and it's recently started making a buzzing noise. It drives me crazy! The noise seems to come from the processor and happens whenever I'm scrolling through web pages, hovering over my dock, launching applications or pretty much whenever the computer is doing anything.
I've googled the issue and found it to be quite common, even being some posts on this forum. Here's the best info I've found so far:
"The squeaking is actually the processor going into Nap mode, and has been noticed on a number of G4 and G5 models. To save power when the processor has a little bit of idle time, it essentially turns itself off. What is happening when it's squeaking like this is it is alternating very rapidly between going in and out of Napping as the processor waits for more things to do. I've noticed that it happens most often during an active SSL connection; an https:// connection, Software Update, checking E-mail on a secure server, or any other secure connections can make this squeaking noise. There are many other ways to produce it too, such as scrolling through a web page or some other more graphic-intensive process.
If you want to check and/or get rid of it, you can download the CHUD tools (part of Apple's Developer Tools, and also available separately). The Processor preference pane (formerly called Hardware) will let you disable Napping, after which point the squeaking should go away. The squeaking also goes away if you reduce processor speed by turning Energy Saver processor performance down to Reduced. However, I'd recommend that you leave Napping enabled (to reduce heat output and increase battery life), so leave it in the default state."
I've downloaded the CHUD tools program and turned off Nap mode, I think. But it still makes the noises! I cannot figure out how to reduce processor speed. So frustrating. Anyone have any advice?
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Jun 28, 2012
My mac book pro is making a strange crackling noise, coming from the right side, at first it was occasional now it's constant. It doesn't matter if the volumes on or off.
Info:
MacBook Pro
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May 10, 2009
when I was browsing the BBC website . I happened upon the front page and could hear a crackling sound, eventually after looking round the room for about 5 minutes I realized it was the macbook.
When the news page 'scroller' at the top types its news story out in a tika tape kinda way that is when the crackling noise happens .
does this make sense ? is my macbook faulty ? ..does it take soo much power to perform this function as to make my macbookCPU crackle ?
the noise is coming from approx the center of the notebook and is quiet(ish) but audible enough
anyone have any ideas ?
link to the site is below , you'll see the words scrolling across the screen at the top which then creates a clickable link to a news story : URL
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Nov 30, 2009
I've been getting these high-pitched chirps (beeps? cheeps?) emanating from the upper left quadrant of the keyboard. They seem to happen when I'm doing some heavy photo processing or such. They're not the chirps that have been reported with some MB and MBP on booting up. I've had them now for months, and while I don't think they've got much worse, they've not gone away. I can't seem to make them happen, either.
I've called in to Apple (Applecare runs out in two weeks) to get a case started and will be taking it in to a genius bar to have them run a hardware test. I just wanted to do some due diligence and check in this forum to see if others know about this and what it might be. My suspicion is that it's a logic board issue (though I think this may be something I'd read when it first came up and I was checking on it then). The sound is very electronic, not mechanical, and it has two or three parts to the sound (not one pure beep); it is short, but sometimes happens several times over a few minutes' time.
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Jul 14, 2008
Has anyone else had problems with an old G3 Pismo making an annoying squealing noise when plugged into a charger? There's a lot of noises mentioned in mac/apple forums but none of them relate to this one. Here's what it is not:
It's not coming from the screen or the fan or the speakers (it's under the keyboard). It's not low or slightly annoying (it is a loud squeal). It happens only when the power adaptor is plugged into the laptop.(it used to cease after I unplugged the power adaptor and plugged it back in three times; now that solution doesn't stop the noise anymore). It charges ok, and runs ok, scream or no-scream. It's quiet right now, but if I move the adaptor to another plug it will start again.
I was going to live with this, but today after an hour of operating quietly it just started again, and I hate to leave the house with this going.(it will scream whether the laptop is on or off. I have a really old battery and cannot replace it (I am currently staying in Mexico for the summer). Battery life is 45 min. I haven't tried pulling the battery out. That would be too easy.
This all started when I bought a replacement power adaptor (generic),after the original one melted down, but I could stop the screaming by unplugging/plugging it in again once or twice. Then I bought an expensive iGo adaptor, and it does the same thing.
I Did the PRAM and PMU reset.I can hear it over music or the tv. It grew lower in pitch today after squealing for a half hour. I'd normally not let it go on that long, but i was
in the other room.Is my PISMO dying?
(400 mhz pismo G3 500 sdram, osx-10.39, no os-9 or Classic, new 80g HD)
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Jun 2, 2010
I'm getting this softly high pitched sound at idle. I did not have this sound before until this month. I bought this thing in January 2010, yes this year. Does anyone know what could be going on? It does not make that sound when I'm using it, it's only at idle. I can even hear it when I'm lying in bed since this is in my room. Check out my signature to see what I have.
It sounds like a idle fan issue? The computer works fine, but it's just that high pitched noise that bothers me. I should take it to the apple store huh?
I decided to keep my current set up and use my mac mini as a desktop that mostly works as a media server like set up that holds my media for my apple TV if I run out of space on the ATV and later use it as a home theater computer when i get another HDTV. this is just fyi on why I have my mbp and mac mini still yet instead of having only one computer...
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Sep 1, 2010
after i get to the windows loading screen my mac just throws out a consistent high pitched sound and shows a black screen, i can only get into bootcamp windows when i unplug the computer and start it up with the running windows normally option. is this a virus?
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Apr 2, 2012
I just bought a pair of the Rokit 5 external speakers. When I plug them into a Mac Pro (Tower) I get a high-pitched hum from the speakers each time I try to play a sound. So if I go into System Preferences/Audio, and I try to play a sound, the high-pitch is heard as the sound plays, and for a second or two after, then it goes away, and is heard again each time I try to play a sound. Same with when I play something thru iTunes or any of my audio apps.
If do the exact same thing playing from a Macbook, I do not have that problem at all, the sound is nice and clear with no high-pitch sound.
I have the speakers plugged in using 1/4 inch jacks to an external sound card (MBox), and this audio card is plugged USB into the Mac.
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Dec 20, 2010
I just got my 2.0ghz Alu Macbook a few days ago and everything works perfectly well, the thing is that after day one the magsafe started to emit a low pitched electrical whistling noise. It tends to be there a few minutes after booting into the OS and then it turns down to almost unhearable, but I experienced it returning after a few hours of use and then disappearing again. If I move close to the escape key I can hear a crackling noise emitting from the magsafe.I'm not trying to be overly nitpicky or anything but I read somewhere that if it's doing that it would be a faulty Mag-Safe board or something.
Does any one you guys know anything about this? I have the 14 days to return it as I bought it online from the Apple Store so if it's a faulty part that might die/break/ cause problems later I might have to.
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Mar 2, 2008
Just got a new 2.2 MBP delivered to me yesterday. Didn't seem to have any problems at all until about an hour ago. I just began hearing a metallic "plink" noise every few minutes or so. Its not a click or a tick but more like a hollow plink. It comes at random intervals but sounds like it may be coming when the hard drive(?) or something inside the machine spins.
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Dec 4, 2009
I've had my macbook for a good 2-3 years. I put in a movie and heard it vibrating and clicking. It then started to make a noise and got louder and louder like it was going to explode. I searched some forums and someone said that it means your hard drive is dying. What do you think it is? should I go into Apple and have them look at it?
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Dec 9, 2009
I bought a MacBook Pro about 10 days ago and it had several dead pixels. That got swapped out for another one which had bubbles of liquid under the glass. I'm on the third now which has a slightly warped case and is now making this clicking noise (0:15) every minute or so.
I don't know what to do - I feel so awkward going in and asking for another swap. Has anyone else got this noise?
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May 14, 2012
I'll be using the Air and all of a sudden there will be static or electrical buzzing coming out of the right speaker on my 13" MacBook Air. It's about 16 months old.
Info:
MacBook Air (13-inch Late 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Dec 13, 2008
I have a 1.8ghz G5 iMac with ambient light sensor. When it is on there is a noticeable high pitched whine that is quite loud. It gets even louder if the fan runs more.
If I replaced the fan would this solve the problem or could it be the power supply?
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