Occasionally (maybe 1-2 times) during a 5-6 hours usage, I will hear a weird clicking sound coming from my iMac. It doesn't seem to be sound of the fan as it sounds very different from the fan sound coming from Macbook Air. Usually it will last for about 20-30 seconds. Is this something I should be concerned about?
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Weird sound coming from iMac 2017
- Thread starter Falcon80
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I have read reports of this but have not experienced it myself. Does your iMac have a Fusion Drive or SSD-only?
Does it occur when you are doing anything in particular or just randomly? It is definitely something you'll want to get Apple to look at if it continues to occur regularly.
It might also be a good idea to try to record it the next time it happens.
It's probably the fan. I returned my 2017 i7/1 Tb/580/8 GB to order the i5 due to the cooling fan ramping up constantly. But I also had the "Clicking" noise that would spin up and down at regular intervals. I placed my ears to the bottom of the computer to confirm it. It fixed itself when I tried watching some 8K YT videos that caused the fan to spin up to 2700RPMs. It never came back again. So it might be just the fans needing some break in time.
BTW, my new i5/1 TB/580/8GB has a near silent fan at the same 1200 RPM at idle. It's really luck of the draw.
I am using i5 as well but it is 3.5Ghz version. So far I do not hear any fan spinning (if it sound similar to my MacBook Air), just this clicking sound.
The returned iMac had a "clicking spin up" for a few seconds then a "clicking spin down" after which I no longer heard it. It came and went consistently after I unboxed the iMac and it frustrated me. My ears are super sensitive to noise so it make me look for a solution which came in the for of a fan spin up to 2700RPM for about a minute. The clicking noise came and went on a regular basis with about 20 seconds between each "occurrence".
Both MacBook Pros I've had, I've had to get the fans replaced at some point do to a clicking issue (always on AppleCare, because something always goes wrong with apple laptops eventually in my experience). The last one was intermittent and I couldn't really pin down a way to make it happen, but I took an audio recording on my phone and brought it into apple and they replaced them and problem solved. No problems with clicking on my i7 2017 iMac though.
Thanks for sharing. It will be too difficult for me to bring the iMac back to store since I don't drive. If the issue persist, I wonder if it will be better to return (self-collect by Apple) and request for a new one instead.