Is it normal for a mac mini to make a clicking sound?

[Danger! Will]

Ever since i got my mac mini its made a clicking sound when waking up from sleep or trying to open large files. It's not a very load clicking sound but my friend pointed it out to me.

Mac Mini 1.42 512mb OS 10.4.2

 

[puckhead193]

it might be a hard drive failure, or its going to fail. So back up and have it looked at by apple.

 

[stevep]

Or it might just be the normal sound made by a hard drive when the head moves around - hard drives aren't silent. Listen to another Mini to see whether yours is normal or not. You'd be very unlucky to have a failing hard drive, it can't be all that old.

 

[redeye be]

I've got a mini (same spes 80 Gb drive).
Same clicking sound, since the first boot (about 7 months ago). I guess it's a normal sound.
I do back up all my data regularly - you never know...

Just tell your friend (and yourself) you only hear the clicking sound because the mini is so silent.

There should be at least a few threads about this issue when the mini was more 'new'. I remember reading and posting in at least one of them. Maybe you'll find more reassurance in one of those older threads.

cheers

 

[mikemodena]

I have the mini in my signature and I never hear a clicking noise.. actually the only noise I ever hear is sometimes a low fan when rendering in Final Cut Pro.

 

[shadowmoses]

My mini makes a slight clicking noise when accessing the hard drive for big files, In think its normal.......You have to take into account not all mac mini's have the same hard drive in them therefore some people will have quieter HD's than others,

So it should be fine....

Shadow

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

My wife has one and i would say it makes more of an engagement and spin up of the hard drive sound when waking rather then a "clicking" sound. If its making the click, click, click ,thats the sound of hard drive death.

 

[Mechcozmo]

1. Open Disk Utility
2. Click on your Hard Drive
3. At the bottom see if the S.M.A.R.T. status reads 'Verified' or 'Failing'
4. Based on the results of #3, duh.

 

[cheekyspanky]

My Mac mini does make a clunking noise every now and again, but I've figured this is normal as my old flatmates PowerBook also used to make the same noise now and then.

My Mac mini is never silent though - I can always hear the fan whirring..is that normal mini behaviour?

 

[texlaw04]

My Mac mini does make a clunking noise every now and again, but I've figured this is normal as my old flatmates PowerBook also used to make the same noise now and then.

My Mac mini is never silent though - I can always hear the fan whirring..is that normal mini behaviour?

If you have any ambient noise in your flat, you shouldn't find the fan to be noticeable. Perhaps my hearing is going, but I can scarcely hear the fan, so much so that, when not spooling up the hard disk for something major, I wouldn't know it was on.