Resolved Make MacBook Pro hard drive quieter?

[Silvrbill]

No, we tried to help but you shot them all down.

I highly suggest that you don't try to look for help anymore.

I think the "help" he needs isn't to be found on the internet.
It's more of a "Lay on the couch and tell me your problems" kind of thing..........

 

[duervo]

Here's a hint:

Instead of comparing benchmarks for mechanical drives, you should be comparing acoustic levels for mechanical laptop drives and getting the one with lowest bel or dBA rating for idle and seek ops.

Another hint: 1bel = 10dBA

 

[yjchua95]

I think the "help" he needs isn't to be found on the internet.
It's more of a "Lay on the couch and tell me your problems" kind of thing..........

He sure needs to see a shrink.

 

[redheeler]

He sure needs to see a shrink.

Stop posting in this thread, it's a waste of your time.

 

[yjchua95]

Stop posting in this thread, it's a waste of your time.

It's a waste of all our time.

 

[cjmillsnun]

The price per gigabyte is not low enough. Also I wouldn't want to upgrade anything else before replacing the built-in keyboard (some keys don't work). I am fine with the speed of a hard disk drive. SSDs are too expensive and I don't need one. RAM is more useful.


This is the last time I am going to explain. SSDs are out of the question so DON'T MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT THEM! 19/20th of the replies are useless "get an ssd" posts. -_- it really pisses me off.

You need to drop the attitude.

People are trying to be helpful. How about you gave that explanation FIRST instead of treating people on here like crap. Their advice would've been different.

Now we understand, you want storage, are not worried about speed, just price. Fine. In that case read below.

Blow out the dust from your mac with compressed air. 99.99% of "hard drive noise" queries turn out to be fan noise. You're describing a whooshing sound, that's air moving. The most likely thing that is going to move air is a fan.

This could be down to the hard drive as faster drives run hotter, hence will activate the fans more quickly than a slower drive. You could replace the 7200 rpm drive with a 5400 rpm drive of similar capacity. This will obviously be slower, but may well be significantly quieter.

Some computers temperature sensors very near, or even attached to the hard drive. They can easily be damaged. They will default to full fan speed if that is the case

My other thought is vibration.

Do you have any dents in the bottom case? MacBook Pros are made of aluminium, and so dent easily. A spinning hard drive will obviously vibrate. If for some reason that vibration is transmitted to the casing, it will amplify that vibration, which you will hear. There are two ways around this, straighten or replace the dented casing, or use thin and small (and I emphasise small) strips of self adhesive rubber to the hard drive at the point that it is touching the casing. This will cushion the drive from the casing, and by only using it where there is some direct contact with the casing you are not affecting cooling. DO NOT cover the vent on the drive under any circumstances. If you do, the drive will be toast very quickly.

One last thought to do with fans.

You have some malfunctioning keys... Why? Did you have a liquid spill on your computer? If so, then that may be causing the fans to work overtime. To fix it is a logic board repair or replacement. At that point, depending on the age of your computer, I'd be looking to replace the machine.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
[[ Your "help" wasn't helpful at all as I clearly said an SSD was out of the question. I asked how to make the hard drive itself quieter, not make my computer quieter. Replacing the hard drive with an SSD is not making the hard drive quieter. ]]

OK, if you aren't interested in the advice folks gave here, go to any other Mac forum on the net.
Pose the same questions you posed here.

I promise you that you'll receive the same responses as you received here.

Drives that have spinning platters within generate sounds.
Drives that are SSD's, do not.

I sense that -any- amount of sound coming from the internal drive is going to produce the same frustration in you that you have expressed above...

 

[David58117]

OP - I was right there with you about the refusal to upgrade to an SSD. Totally not worth the price for a min shaved off a restart time, and opening apps a little faster.

Anyway, yesterday I saw BB had a 240GB Intel 530 on sale for around $120 and decided to give it a try.

I still think they're mostly over-rated, EXCEPT in one situation - the HDD noise!!!

My 2012 MBP is completely silent now and it's awesome.

Anyway, you won't find anything else to solve it, but good luck to you.

 

[poiihy]

Today I tested (or am testing now) the drives.

The Samsung spinpoint is louder. MUCH louder "whoosh" sound. However, the seek noise is extremely quiet! I barely hear it at all!

Speed seems to be about the same, maybe a little slower.

Well now I know what drive to use. I'll stick with my Momentus.

Hard drives seem to vary a lot.

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OK, if you aren't interested in the advice folks gave here, go to any other Mac forum on the net.
Pose the same questions you posed here.

I promise you that you'll receive the same responses as you received here.

Actually what I should've done is asked in a hard drive forum or related. They would know much more about hard drives than MacRumors. MacRumors only knows about SSDs and general Mac stuff.

I sense that -any- amount of sound coming from the internal drive is going to produce the same frustration in you that you have expressed above...

No it would not.

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Anyway I marked this thread as Resolved as I am done with this thread (didn't really go anywhere).