Clicking noise from MBP when used in bed

sharingan_sasuk · 5 Aug 2010 at 16:46

Hi all, I've got a MBP which I bought from the Apple store back in May. It's the 15" one with the Intel i5, and I'm loving it. However, I've noticed that when I take it to bed with me and I have it on my lap, it sometimes does a faint clicking, from I guess the bottom left quarter section of the base. I notice the sound more when I'm lying back with the laptop on my lap and thus the laptop is slanted more towards me.

Strangely enough, this only occurs when I have the laptop at an angle, because nearly every time I've heard it, it's when I've taken it to bed. When used (as it is most of the time) flat sitting on my desk, I don't get it. At first I thought my hard drive was already dying, but it's happened ever since I bought it. I've Google'd around, and some say it's due to Apple's motion sensor thing built in the hard drive to assist when the MBP is dropped or whatever.

Now I haven't called Apple yet because I prefer e-mailing first but I cannot find anywhere to send an e-mail so I'll ask here first. Anyone come across this before? And before anyone wonders, it doesn't really sound like a worked hard drive under heavy load, and I haven't had any HD issues so far whilst running under Mac OS X.

Many thanks for reading!

SiriusB · 5 Aug 2010 at 16:52

I sometimes hear a little click on the bottom right if I tip my MBP to the left. Nothing happens when I tilt it forwards or backwards, and I regularly use mine sat in bed

sharingan_sasuk · 5 Aug 2010 at 16:56

Strange, I just tried that; tipped to the left and heard the click to the right lol. I just wanna see what ideas people have about this, because it would be a hassle to take or send this to Apple, only to find it was some nifty device Apple implemented in that few people knew about!

PR. · 6 Aug 2010 at 13:17

Usually the disk heads parking. Either because the accelerometer thinks you're about to drop the laptop or because OSX isn't using the HDD and it gets powered down as you're running on batteries.

theheyes · 6 Aug 2010 at 15:07

PR. said:
Usually the disk heads parking. Either because the accelerometer thinks you're about to drop the laptop or because OSX isn't using the HDD and it gets powered down as you're running on batteries.

I've always assumed this as well.

Bes · 6 Aug 2010 at 16:18

Almost certainly the disk heads parking to avoid crashing on the platter if you give it any sharp shocks.

Pav89 · 6 Aug 2010 at 23:18

Bes said:
Almost certainly the disk heads parking to avoid crashing on the platter if you give it any sharp shocks.

This. I get clicks when I slightly move my MBP. It's a standard feature :-)

QwaF · 7 Aug 2010 at 01:22

If it sounds like a 'dink' rather than a 'click', then I had the exact same thing when I was sat on my bed when I first got the system. But after a few weeks it just stopped.. I obviously still hear the disk head parking, but this was a different noise from a slightly different place.