Occasional Click

[furryrabidbunny]

I am running a 20" Intel iMac, and occasionally I hear a clicking sound from the computer. This occurs during really basic and normally quiet operation (hard drive isn't really spinning loud, no cd in the drive). I am worried that it could a fan acting up.

 

[mad jew]

It's probably nothing to worry about, but check that your SMART status in Disk Utility is verified for your hard drive all the same.

 

[furryrabidbunny]

It says verified... I guess if anything goes wrong it will go wrong. Thats what applecare if for.

 

[mad jew]

Yeah. Keep everything backed up, as I'm sure you're doing anyway. Clicking hard drives can mean they're failing however it's usually a more regular click rather than sporadic clicks. There are other components that click too, like the CPU, but that's normal.

 

[gekko513]

Some hard drive clicks are normal. It depends on the brand, but some drives make a click as a part of their normal operation. I'm guessing it's when the read/write head clicks back to its idle position.

If the drive has started making clicking noises that weren't there before I'd be worried.

 

[furryrabidbunny]

The click wasn't there originally, it's started about a week ago (I would say my iMac is about a month old). I checked the apple discussion boards about the problem, and it seems to be common (on the boards). My click is more to the bottom left, and is "plastic" in sound, it doesn't sound like a metal click, more like something hiting plastic. I read on one of the links that someone had their logic board replaced over it... should I contact applecare? I am not too worried, I just don't want my computer to die on me one day at random.