MacBook is whistling

AlanD

Today, my MacBook has started to whistle as if the HDD has a squeaky disk or something. It's driving me cracked! What is it!

It's twittering away like a bird.....not loud but I can hear it all the same.

smog

If you have an external drive start backing your stuff up to it or run a time machine to it

Sounds like you HDD could be in trouble

Sad Professor

Could it be the fans?

Open Disk Utility and check what your hdd's SMART status is.

AlanD

smog wrote: »

If you have an external drive start backing your stuff up to it or run a time machine to it

Sounds like you HDD could be in trouble

Everything is Time Machined out so I'm ok from that perspective.

Thing is though, I can hear the HDD moving at other times and it seems to run normally without the whistling.

AlanD

Sad Professor wrote: »

Could it be the fans?

Open Disk Utility and check what your hdd's SMART status is.

emm...I'm a Mac novice....can't seem to figure out what SMART status is

Sad Professor

Select your hdd in Disk Utility and look at the bottom, it should say "S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified".

Are you sure it's not the fans? Have you heard them before?

AlanD

Sad Professor wrote: »

Select your hdd in Disk Utility and look at the bottom, it should say "S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified".

Are you sure it's not the fans? Have you heard them before?

yeah almost certain it's not the fans. Fans just came on now and they sound smooth.

I opened the activity monitor too to see if I could correlate the sounds to reads and writes to the disk, but not exactly.

SMART status is verified.

Sad Professor

Is this whistling constant? Try turning Airport off (stab in the dark but it sometimes makes a squeaking noise).

AlanD

Sad Professor wrote: »

Is this whistling constant? Try turning Airport off (stab in the dark but it sometimes makes a squeaking noise).

no it comes and goes.....on for 10 secs maybe and off for the same.

Airport is off alright. When at my desk, I use a cable for the internet instead of wireless.

I'm using a wireless bluetooth keyboard though.....well have been for about a week and today is the first time I've heard the squeaking.

If it persists I'll go get it looked at. Machine is barely run it.

Sad Professor

Turning off bluetooth is worth a try as well I guess.

The last thing I can suggest is to do a hardware test. To do this insert the OSX install disc, reboot and hold down the D key as it starts up.

AlanD

Sad Professor wrote: »

Turning off bluetooth is worth a try as well I guess.

The last thing I can suggest is to do a hardware test. To do this insert the OSX install disc, reboot and hold down the D key as it starts up.

Yeah turned off bluetooth there. No difference.

Also, when I open a new application which normally requires a lot of disk movement, disk sounds fine.

Is that hardware check safe for my data? I know it's all backed up but....just for handiness sake

Sad Professor

Yeah it's perfectly safe, it just checks things like RAM, etc.

damo86

try disconnecting the power cord and see if it persists, could be just electrical noise??

AlanD

damo86 wrote: »

try disconnecting the power cord and see if it persists, could be just electrical noise??

I'll give that a go. Could well be electrical noise...

On that note, since I sit in front my my MacBook all day, is it ok for the battery to leave the power chord in all day or should I charge and drain, charge and drain.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

AlanD wrote: »

On that note, since I sit in front my my MacBook all day, is it ok for the battery to leave the power chord in all day or should I charge and drain, charge and drain.

You're probably best taking the bettery out and running off the mains power if yu're just sitting at a desk all day, but also charge and discharge the battery regularly, like once a month minimum.

AlanD

It probably does get drained every other day anyway since my wife uses it at night time on the battery.

So long as there is no real issues leaving it plugged in fort 8 hours a day.

ZENER

Have you tried muting the audio ? Could it be coming from the speakers ? Plug earphones into the output socket and see if it goes away/moves to the earphones ? There were issues with the electrical connector causing noise from the speakers but I thought that was on older models only.

ZEN

AlanD

ZENER wrote: »

Have you tried muting the audio ? Could it be coming from the speakers ? Plug earphones into the output socket and see if it goes away/moves to the earphones ? There were issues with the electrical connector causing noise from the speakers but I thought that was on older models only.

ZEN

yeah muted it alright and it still twittered away.

Strangely enough, it's all quiet today. So maybe it was just a temporary thing.

ZENER

AlanD wrote: »

yeah muted it alright and it still twittered away.

Strangely enough, it's all quiet today. So maybe it was just a temporary thing.

Muting it still leaves the speakers and the amplifier connected internally. Try plugging something into the headphone socket the next time it starts, this physically disconnects the speakers and routes the audio to the 'phones - worth a shot ?!

ZEN

deevey

Also try turning the screen brightnesss up and down ...

screen invertor is making a "whistle" at the moment, but i've know it was on its way out for ages... same happened to a dropped macbook a mate of mine was repairing.

..... so lads and lassies ...we getting a pool going or what ??

AlanD

lots of great advice here. Thanks to all of you. Whistling has stopped for now, but if it comes back, I'll retry all of the above.