Mac Pro 3.1 making weird clicking noise

[Gomff]

Hello everyone

A friend of mine's Mac Pro (2008 3.1) is making a weird clicking noise intermittently. To me, they sound like the kind of clicks that static electricity makes and they're quite quick....About 3 or 4 per second.

There doesn't seem to be any trigger or thing you can do to make it start...It just happens randomly and goes on for anything up to 20 minutes or until the machine is shut down and restarted. It seems like the noise is coming from the power supply. We've tried resetting the SMC but that made no difference.

Does anybody know what this might be? I suspect his power supply is on the way out, but don't want to recommend he replace it unless I can be sure that's what it is. On the other hand, I'm weary about the issue getting worse and potentially damaging his Logic board.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Clicking is often a hard drive dying. What's the S.M.A.R.T. status?

 

[Gomff]

Clicking is often a hard drive dying. What's the S.M.A.R.T. status?

Hi, thanks for the suggestion....It's definitely not a hard drive click of death (I know that sound very well!). It's considerably louder.

I will suggest he check the SMART status though just to be sure.

 

[turtlez]

perhaps the power cable from the GPU has found its way to just be nicked by the front fans.

 

[DanielCoffey]

Are all the fans clean? There could be something small that has been sucked in and is just touching a fan blade...

 

[Gomff]

Are all the fans clean? There could be something small that has been sucked in and is just touching a fan blade...

Thanks for the suggestions. There are no obstructions and the fans etc are clean (my friends blasts the machine with air every few months anyway but we checked the fans as well).

The sound is definitely like something is sparking, rather than hitting something else....I'm convinced it's an electrical issue.