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Irritating Whistling on iMac 21.5

T

TiffanyBee

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 30, 2010
45
0
California
I just received my very first iMac two days ago & just noticed this horrendous whistling noise that reminds me of leaving a really loud concert. It coordinates with the display's brightness apparently (I looked it up before hand) & stops whistling at max brightness & min brightness. Anything in between = whistling.

How should I address this problem? Should I just go to the Apple store & have them replace my iMac? :/
 
TiffanyBee said:
I just received my very first iMac two days ago & just noticed this horrendous whistling noise that reminds me of leaving a really loud concert. It coordinates with the display's brightness apparently (I looked it up before hand) & stops whistling at max brightness & min brightness. Anything in between = whistling.

How should I address this problem? Should I just go to the Apple store & have them replace my iMac? :/
Click to expand...

that's a BIG affirmative!! Do it!

My first 27' i5 also had that problem, 3 days later i had the TNT company to pick it up.

Strange the newer versions having that problem
 
Ah! Thanks, what a hassle. I don't want to part with it yet but I guess I haven't a choice. I thought I received a perfect iMac until yesterday when I noticed the noise. :( I hope the replacement won't have any whistling!
 
TiffanyBee said:
Ah! Thanks, what a hassle. I don't want to part with it yet but I guess I haven't a choice. I thought I received a perfect iMac until yesterday when I noticed the noise. :( I hope the replacement won't have any whistling!
Click to expand...

I know, believe me, i'm sorry for your "bad apple", i've been there myself.

The replacement will be 100% Ok, believe it ;)

the sooner you replace it the better. The less time you stay with it around you the better. that will make you more sad about it lol
 
I took it to the apple store & they said they couldn't hear anything. They kind of blamed it on my room & I tested this shiz alone in a regular wall socket & in my surge protector. I bought a new one so that's not the problem. The wall socket still rendered a noise when I turned down the brightness.

They told me they would replace it for me but I mean, what if they all just have this annoying whistling noise? It's so irritating that I can hear it over my music.
 
TiffanyBee said:
I took it to the apple store & they said they couldn't hear anything. They kind of blamed it on my room & I tested this shiz alone in a regular wall socket & in my surge protector. I bought a new one so that's not the problem. The wall socket still rendered a noise when I turned down the brightness.

They told me they would replace it for me but I mean, what if they all just have this annoying whistling noise? It's so irritating that I can hear it over my music.
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OMG!!! your kidding!! :eek: wtf?

The nerve of those guys, there's a lot of people who had that kind of problem why would they say the cause was from your room....jesuss! I had the same problem, tried different wall sockets AND the noise was always there. tell me something, for a chance you didn't search where the noise was coming from? mine and, for that case, for all the people the noise was coming from the top left side of the iMac.

But did they already replaced it?
 
Yeah so I got it replaced & I turned down the brightness to see if it made the same sound..& it does.

It's not nearly as bad as the other one was but I can still hear it. I don't like my screen on full brightness, it is blinding & it strains my eyes a bit. :/

It comes from the left side for me as well..I feel like all of them have it. I'm glad it doesn't have a yellow tinge though.
 
TiffanyBee said:
Yeah so I got it replaced & I turned down the brightness to see if it made the same sound..& it does.

It's not nearly as bad as the other one was but I can still hear it. I don't like my screen on full brightness, it is blinding & it strains my eyes a bit. :/

It comes from the left side for me as well..I feel like all of them have it. I'm glad it doesn't have a yellow tinge though.
Click to expand...

But in a normal situation can you hear it, does it make that whistle kind of sound?

If you're not happy maybe it's best to replace it again, or isn't bothering you that much?
 
I'm not going to go through the hassle of replacing it again. It's not like the Apple Store is far away, I'm just tired of it. It's heavy to carry around & my boyfriend has already helped me carry it & I don't want to hassle him every time I get a faulty iMac.

I can hear the ringing noise when my brightness is not maxed out or if it's at the min brightness. BUT I can still hear the noise when it is in between. It's not as irritating as before & I can generally ignore it give or take 5 minutes but after a bit, the sound goes away. It comes back again when I think about the noise though.

It's not in my head!!
 
noise and stain display

the same problem and...
Last November I bought an i-Mac 21.5" in Mexico City in an authorized reseller-shop (down here in Mexico we don't have Apple Stores). From November to march, I started to hear a little noise when the display brightness was low. This noise is like static or something similar. Since then, what I did not realize at the beginning, is that my display started to get stained in the upper left corner.
This is photo of my i-Mac: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3320/4625203528_58210be546_b.jpg.

I brought my mac to service and thought it would be no problem to repair it with warranty, since the problem is obviously an error by Apple... The reseller told me 3 days later that "Apple" (desicion made by apple engineers, not my reseller) can not repair my i-Mac nor change the display, because the problem is mine and therefore not applicable to warranty. The reason? I had used my i-Mac the wrong way, specifically within a wrong ambient temp. (75.2F thats wrong temp? of course not).

I been reading similar cases in Europe or the USA and they had always made valid the warranty. Is Apple handling their clients that way just in Mexico?

I really don't know what to do in this particular situation. The worst of all, is, that the stain is growing.

What do you think? What can/shall I do?

Thanks for any help... :confused:
 
Just out of curiosity, how often does Steve Job actually answer his e-mails? I'd assume he gets millions a day.

Do you think that Apple would upgrade my iMac for the latest one (when it gets released) if I bring it in & tell them how irritated I am with this ridiculous whistling noise?

Boy, that stain looks horrible...I hope mine doesn't turn out that way. Eeesh.
 
TiffanyBee said:
Just out of curiosity, how often does Steve Job actually answer his e-mails? I'd assume he gets millions a day.

Do you think that Apple would upgrade my iMac for the latest one (when it gets released) if I bring it in & tell them how irritated I am with this ridiculous whistling noise?

Boy, that stain looks horrible...I hope mine doesn't turn out that way. Eeesh.
Click to expand...

I think it is a nicely cultivated illusion, but some people reported getting a phone call from the Customer Relations afterwards and typically really a great service. It would be nice to think, that maybe (just maybe) Steve Jobs reads some of the emails himself?

Tom B.
 
I've seen a lot of people tell others to just e-mail Steve Jobs but I thought it was a joke...because how often does the man have time to sit down & read about customer complaints?
 
TiffanyBee said:
I've seen a lot of people tell others to just e-mail Steve Jobs but I thought it was a joke...because how often does the man have time to sit down & read about customer complaints?
Click to expand...

I never tried it myself, but what you can lose by sending a polite email, then wait and see? I think some people on this forum were even quoting his address.

Tom B.
 
Do you think this problem will be fixed on the 2010 iMac? Because in all honesty, I would love for my iMac to somehow crash really badly around the date the new iMac releases so I can make them upgrade me! haha. But that probably won't happen..or will it? I've heard lots of people getting upgraded to the 27!
 
TiffanyBee said:
Do you think this problem will be fixed on the 2010 iMac? Because in all honesty, I would love for my iMac to somehow crash really badly around the date the new iMac releases so I can make them upgrade me! haha. But that probably won't happen..or will it? I've heard lots of people getting upgraded to the 27!
Click to expand...

I don't know for sure, but there is a number of quality issues with 2009 iMacs (including "noisy", or buzzing screen), which really don't want to go away, and repairs and replacements must cost Apple a bundle (not to mention slightly tarnish image of perfection, important for posh products). I feel, that for some reason these can't be economically fixed for the 2009 year model (otherwise they would be long gone, as is the infamous screen flickering), but I fully expect the refreshed model to be totally free of buzzing and screen yellowing (as well as including at least a token bumping up of some of the parameters).

Tom B.
 
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