my white Core Duo (20", 2GHz) iMac is making squeaking noises, like crickets.

[seenew]

Nothing has gone wrong so far that I can tell. I mean, the computer is functioning normally. I'm just worried something is about to break. I got the computer last June (2006) so it's about a year and a half old (wow, that's weird, I never thought about that).. I don't think anything should be breaking. I only move it between home and college (by car) twice a year, and it's never been dropped or anything, I take good care of it..

I know since there's no fans in it, that it can't be that, so what could it be? Hopefully not the harddrive..

(ps: it's not loud, I can only hear it if there is absolutely no other noise in the room. like, if I have music on, even at a low volume, it's undetectable. it's just making me nervous!)

(pps: also, sometimes if I put it to sleep for like 2 minutes and wake it back up, it stops)

 

[gorby]

Mine has some static-y sounding 'pops' sometimes...

 

[iMan G5]

No fans?!?! What happened to them? Did you take them out?
Also I am very sure it is either your hard drive(my iMac G5 makes the same noise, no problems) or your non existent fans.

 

[SaSaSushi]

No fans?!?! What happened to them? Did you take them out?
Also I am very sure it is either your hard drive(my iMac G5 makes the same noise, no problems) or your non existent fans.

Then again, if he removed the fans it wouldn't run very long to make squeaking noises. It might make one final squeak as the CPU overheated I guess.

Sounds to me like a fan gone wonky.

 

[QCassidy352]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3)

sounds like a fan to me too

 

[hankolerd]

Sounds like when it gets warm a fan speeds up a little bit more from the added heat, and probably some dust stuck to a blade throws it off balance and makes it squeak occasionally.
Being in dusty Butte Montana I have just been waiting for the day when I start to get a squeaky fan.
The only thing to be worried about is that if it gets off balance enough it could throw the bearing and stop working altogether, in which case your computer will probably start to overheat, and hopefully shut down before any damage is done.
If it starts getting real bad I would take it somewhere and get it looked at. It's not worth losing a nice computer to a cheap fan fix. Chances are though you will get a new computer before it goes.

 

[iMan G5]

Yeah I thought it was my fans at first. I'm sitting around 1,000RPM with no sqeaks.

 

[seenew]

maybe I'm stupid (probably), but I was under the impression that there were no fans in this Rev of the iMacs... Something about the vents in the top and bottom creating enough circulation...
Or are these fans connected to specific components? I'm not that knowledgeable about the inner workings of computers.

 

[pilotError]

You need to oil the hampster wheel! LOL

 

[SaSaSushi]

maybe I'm stupid (probably), but I was under the impression that there were no fans in this Rev of the iMacs... Something about the vents in the top and bottom creating enough circulation...
Or are these fans connected to specific components? I'm not that knowledgeable about the inner workings of computers.

You've been misinformed. This hardly makes you stupid.

There are several fans in your iMac. I recommend you download iStat Pro which will list the fans and show you what speeds they are rotating at.

http://www.islayer.com/index.php?op=item&id=7

Perhaps you can also see if one is spinning slower or erratically. I really think you're probably looking at a fan issue.

 

[seenew]

Okay:

Fans
Optical Drive: ~800rpm (pretty constant)
CPU fan: ~800rpm (constant as well)
Hard Drive: 1400rpm (again, constant)


do these numbers mean anything to anyone?

also:
CPU A: 121°F
Ambient: 77°F
GPU Diode: 144°F
HD Bay 1: 121°F
Optical Drive: 99°

 

[SaSaSushi]

Okay:

Fans
Optical Drive: ~800rpm (pretty constant)
CPU fan: ~800rpm (constant as well)
Hard Drive: 1400rpm (again, constant)

do these numbers mean anything to anyone?

also:
CPU A: 121°F
Ambient: 77°F
GPU Diode: 144°F
HD Bay 1: 121°F
Optical Drive: 99°

Well my CPU and HD fans run at a constant 1200rpm which is strange because your CPU is running far hotter. My CPU is at 90F (32C) currently.

That said I was more pointing out iStat Pro as a means to see that in fact your system has fans and that perhaps if one was severely malfunctioning you might be able to notice it in the rpm readings.

That doesn't seem to be the case. I think it might just be a fan out of alignment. I would get Apple to check it for you.

 

[seenew]

I'd love to, if it were still under warranty and I lived near an Apple store. (nearest is 3 hours)

Guess I'll pray for it to last another year or so.