iMac begins to make tiny sound when using interface

[jennyp]

My iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015; 4 GHz Intel Core i7; 32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3;AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4 GB) has today started to make tiny sounds when using the user interface.

Closing Safari tabs, clicking into Safari scroll areas, inserting the cursor into TextEdit fields, selecting menubar items, pressing the space key, just about anything can cause this tiny little sound, like a tiny "psst", but randomly - it doesn't happen every time.

This is totally new to me and I haven't a clue what's going on.

Has this ever happened to anyone else? Any clues as to what might be happening?

 

[YanniDepp]

I've seen old 90s PCs do this when the speaker volume was too high. The speakers were picking up electromagnetic interference when the picture on the screen changed substantially (e.g. scrolling or switching apps). That was with old CRT monitors that did put out a substantial magnetic field.

That shouldn't happen on a modern LCD screen though. Can you get a recording of the sound or a video of it happening?

 

[Hater]

I've seen old 90s PCs do this when the speaker volume was too high. The speakers were picking up electromagnetic interference when the picture on the screen changed substantially (e.g. scrolling or switching apps). That was with old CRT monitors that did put out a substantial magnetic field.

That shouldn't happen on a modern LCD screen though. Can you get a recording of the sound or a video of it happening?

My old G5 used to do this too, as does the yum-cha Chinese all in one cash register I sometimes spend hours standing behind. They're picking up EMF from somewhere... with the G5 it was easy, I disabled the on-board speaker permanently but I doubt OP wants to do this...

 

[jennyp]

The sound is like a very quiet version of an iPhone locking, but shorter. "Tschuk." It could almost be construed as some sort of user interface feedback. Both the mouse and the keyboard can evoke it. It's frequent, but random. I can't think of a way of recording it. Perhaps it's aliens. I just hope my iMac isn't dying.

 

[Huddy]

This could be a vast number of possibilities, some off the top of my head.

- Electrical appliance interference, any new appliance plugged in recently, it doesn't even have to be in the same room; just sharing the loop. If your plugged directly into the wall, get a surge protector in between the iMac and the wall socket.

- PSU, GPU capacitors bulging over time creating coil whine, this is very common with hardware as it ages (thanks China). Eventually they will fail but that could be years away. You will notice this much like you have over certain areas of the desktop that require more draw such as UI that requires animation.

- Speakers, magnetic interference from something close by on your desk.

Hope that helps.

 

[jennyp]

Thanks for that info, though I can't see that anything new has been plugged in recently, and the iMac is behind a surge protector. Perhaps I'll never know. Maybe I'll just have to pretend it's a new interface sound Thanks again.

 

[siddhartha]

Potentially disk access, too. Are you using an SSD, or fusion/HD?

 

[jennyp]

Potentially disk access, too. Are you using an SSD, or fusion/HD?

All SSD

 

[Fishrrman]

Record the sound and post it here.