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manutd

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
39
0
London
i just recieved my replacement imac and i still get ticking sounds from the hardrive whenever i open a application, you can only hear it in quiet conditions though
 

orangezorki

macrumors 6502a
Aug 30, 2006
633
30
manutd said:
i just recieved my replacement imac and i still get ticking sounds from the hardrive whenever i open a application, you can only hear it in quiet conditions though

Don't take this the wrong way, but what you are hearing may be normal. All HDs make some noise, and after being used to the sound of one type, the noises made by another can really sound scary. I'd try and run a disk checking program and also search for a widget or app that can check the SMART status. If both say everything is fine, then it probably is. The sounds will then fade into the background as you get used to them and expect them with certain tasks.

David
 

manutd

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
39
0
London
the hard drive sounds like something from before the year 2000, with my pc and laptop you can just hear quick faint whizzes, whereas an the imac its ticking and scratching. when i phone up apple i asked is the imac ment to be silent when opening the application, they said yes it is ment to be silent.

they said they will give me a a full refund, only after holding and listening to some dreadful music.
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
Different brands, models, and sizes of drives do sound different, and the iMac's drive may be closer to your ears (or closer to an cooling vent) than you're used to. And you say you can only hear it in quiet conditions? Doesn't sound like a problem to me.

I suspect you are hearing normal HD sounds. (Which I'd personally be slightly disturbed NOT to hear :p )

Can you have Apple listen to it at the store for you? Getting two defective HDs in a row sounds very unlikely--and it's a shame to keep giving up good iMacs if there's no problem. Then again, trying a third HD would also answer the question :) Sounds like Apple's bending over backwards, as they will sometimes do!
 

manutd

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
39
0
London
which brand of hard drive do imacs use, i usually get seagates which are reliable and quiet. If you have a mighty mouse you can kinda recreate the sound for yourself by rolling the scroll ball, mutiply this sound by 3 and add some bass to the sound, this is the sound im getting.

i probally am being a bit picky, but i want my imac to be perfect, also a lot of other people on the forum are saying their imacs run silently.
 

MacProGuy

macrumors regular
Aug 16, 2006
137
0
manutd said:
which brand of hard drive do imacs use, i usually get seagates which are reliable and quiet. If you have a mighty mouse you can kinda recreate the sound for yourself by rolling the scroll ball, mutiply this sound by 3 and add some bass to the sound, this is the sound im getting.

i probally am being a bit picky, but i want my imac to be perfect, also a lot of other people on the forum are saying their imacs run silently.


The drives in the iMacs are Seagate 7200.9's... which are some of the quietest drives around.

If you are coming from a PC... you might not be used to hard disk noise... as... quite honestly... usually the fans in the case drown out other noises that you don't notice UNTIL there are virtually no fan case noise...

Run XBENCH and see what you are getting as throughput...

I'd be VERY skeptical that there is anything wrong with 2 straight drives...

More likely you just aren't used to the sounds that a *SILENT* pc makes :)

My .02!
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
I know how you feel :) And of course you want to be sure your HD isn't going to die, I can understand that.

But I think there are two factors at work:

1. One person's definition of "silent" (and the conditions they work in) is different from another's.

and

2. Silent once the HD is done may mean merely near-silent while the HD is active.

ALSO:

A new iMac takes some time indexing the files for Spotlight, and that runs the HD more than normal. This would cause additional sound (and even some slowdown) at the beginning.

The above post is probably right: you are hearing little sounds that a normal jet engine PC drowns out :) (And as for laptop drives, they tend to be quieter I find. Maybe because they are smaller and slower.)
 

manutd

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
39
0
London
its probally is just me, im in a silent room so any change in noise is quite annoying (basically sounds like a rock concert everytime i access a app cos of the silence in my room), right now i can hear the fans, which sounds quite calming.

i would be miles less worried if the Imac had a removable internal HD that i could change myself.

The apple guy on the phone did say the imac was ment to be completely silent.

everything probally is ok
 

CubeHacker

macrumors 65816
Apr 22, 2003
1,245
257
Many hard drives these days, but especially Seagates, tend to make very loud (or at least annoying sounding) idle test runs. It depends on the hard drive model, but it can be described as anything from "chattering" to scratching all the way to small clicks or clunks that occcur every minute, or even more frequently. Believe me, i've tried several Seagates, and they all exhibit this "issue", although it IS normal operation. They drives do it to prevent the head from sticking (supposedly) and to keep reliability up.

The only drives that I can recommend that don't make these strange idle sounds are Samsung hard drives.
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
manutd said:
The apple guy on the phone did say the imac was ment to be completely silent.

everything probally is ok
The guy did give you bad info--or at least exaggerated: no computer with a hard disk and/or fans can ever be COMPLETELY silent.


manutd said:
right now i can hear the fans, which sounds quite calming.
I'd listen to them as much as possible then :D
 
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