Are your macbook's silent? not sure if mine has a fault or not..

Felix E

Felix E

Felix E

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Hi all,

I've had my macbook for about a week now, I seem to remember that when I was first using it, it was completely silent. Now however there seems to be a fan or something constantly on inside it, even when just running safari and browsing the web, as I am now.

There is also a high pitched noise present when I plug the power supply in, which goes away as soon as I unplug it.

So, has anyone else with a macbook noticed this kind of thing? the fan noise seems to be located near the dvd drive.

Felix
 
Funnily enough I was reading up about this last night and found a good sight with common faults, although they are for the MacBook Pro, people have had the same problems with MacBooks.

The whining sounds like CPU whine.

Source

CPU Whine. This noise is present at different times for different people, but seems most prevalent when running on battery powery. The noise is directly related to CPU usage, which may simply be a side-effect of it being directly related to power consumption. The noise can be alleviated by using the built-in iSight camera, plugging in certain external USB devices, utilizing the CPU at a constant rate, or by way of the Mirror Widget/MagNoiseKiller hack, which may simply be a less cluttered equivalent of actually running the iSight camera the whole time, in terms of power usage.
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I'm not sure about the fan noise you can here as you say it's coming from near the DVD drive, do you mean behind it? As the MacBook fans are located under the keyboard behind the DVD drive. I think they can generally run hot after long usage.
 
Mine has the 'cpu whine' that seems quite common, it comes and goes as the cpu goes from being idle to in use. Its not a big problem but when using the macbook in a totally quiet environment it can be quite noticeable.

The are a couple of apps that get rid of it but they do this by basically making the cpu busy all the time, this obviously has implications for heat and battery life.
 
iStat will show CPU idle at 100% but with exhaust fan at 1800rpm. CPU temperature at 37C. The fan turns off when I put the laptop to sleep (obviously) but as soon as it's active again it runs constantly. The other noise I only have with the power supply plugged in.. it doesn't seem to relate to cpu usage on mine although I'll test later to make sure.

The trouble is I work much better (uni stuff) in a silent environment, and it just seems like unnecessary noise.. I wouldn't mind so much if the fan just came on occasionally.

The power thing seems like a fault so I might try giving the apple store I bought it from a ring.

Felix

*edit* The power supply thing does seem to be related to CPU usage. If I have the MB plugged in I get the noise, when I launch a load of apps it goes away and then comes back once things have settled down. It's fine running off battery power.

Best theories so far suggest the problem is a flaw in the power supply, which vibrates in response to fluctuating power draw and produces audible noises. The most recent shipping units seem less likely to exhibit the problem, though it seems some are still squeaking (heh, heh) by. I’ve never read of or heard of anybody who has sent a machine in for repair and had the whine fixed, though I have heard from several who have received replacement units with no whine. Fixability Factor: I’m guessing it’s 100% fixable but perhaps a 10% or less chance a defective unit will actually come back fixed.
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Mine has the same high pitched noise when the power supply is plugged in. I'm not sure if its meant to be there but I think I'm just going to live with it
 
it's not meant to be there.. mine's only 6 days old so i'm probably going to ask for a replacement. Just been watching vids on youtube type website, the cpu usage is between 0 and 25% yet the temp is rising up to the 60s and the fan is spinning up to 5500rpm!
 
Felix E said:
it's not meant to be there.. mine's only 6 days old so i'm probably going to ask for a replacement. Just been watching vids on youtube type website, the cpu usage is between 0 and 25% yet the temp is rising up to the 60s and the fan is spinning up to 5500rpm!
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Yeah, if it's only 6 days old then get it replaced. Apple are very good with warranty issues and faults.

If they wont replace it, you can always get a refund and buy another, but it's probably not worth the hassle.
 
Safari still has a dodgy memory leak if I recall, so it could be unknowingly mooching the RAM usage and possibly causing the CPU to use more cycles.

I base this theory on no actual experience with a faulty MB or MBP, so take with a pinch of salt ;)
 
Felix E said:
Just been watching vids on youtube type website, the cpu usage is between 0 and 25% yet the temp is rising up to the 60s and the fan is spinning up to 5500rpm!
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That doesn't sound too abnormal to be honest - in my experience anything that uses flash extensively will ramp up the cpu on your Mac.. my MacBook is the same, and the MacBook Pro and G5 iMac at work do exactly the same thing.. Flash just seems to use a lot of CPU on the Mac in my experience for whatever reason (and in any browser).
 
Just to revive this thread in case anyone was interested!

I did take my macbook back to the apple store, it was taken into a quiet back room and the guy came back and told me that he could hear the whine and that they were prepared to offer a refund or replacement. However he also warned me that they had a MBP in the back room and that he could hear a whine from that one as well if he listened closely.

Anyway I went for an exchange and walked out with a new MB... which it turns out has the same problem. I've decided I can live with it as it's obviously a common problem and it seems slightly more quiet than the first one, it's just a bit of a shame as it's the only bad thing I have to say about the laptop.

On the upside, the first MB had one dead pixel and this one has none! Result. ;)
 
Felix E said:
Just to revive this thread in case anyone was interested!

I did take my macbook back to the apple store, it was taken into a quiet back room and the guy came back and told me that he could hear the whine and that they were prepared to offer a refund or replacement. However he also warned me that they had a MBP in the back room and that he could hear a whine from that one as well if he listened closely.

Anyway I went for an exchange and walked out with a new MB... which it turns out has the same problem. I've decided I can live with it as it's obviously a common problem and it seems slightly more quiet than the first one, it's just a bit of a shame as it's the only bad thing I have to say about the laptop.

On the upside, the first MB had one dead pixel and this one has none! Result. ;)
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I think Apple do a great job of replacing products, no questions asked.

It's a shame it has the same fault though, but then as you say, it's got no dead pixels so it all worked out in the end I suppose.

Thanks for keeping us updated :)
 
Nice one :)

I heard a super faint whine on mine when using Photoshop (on batteries), but I haven't heard it since so I suspect it was either my head playing tricks or it's gone
 
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