[Simon Young]

I've had my 17" PB for about 5 months now, and I delighted with it.

However, I recently noticed two things that have been bothering me slightly. Firstly, if I listen carefully I can hear what I assume is the hard disk accessing almost all the time. The noise is coming from roughly the centre of the keyboard, and is quite obvious if I put my ear to it. The worrying thing is that occasionally the drive makes a little 'click' noise - actually, its better described as a soft 'clunk'. I wouldn't pay it much attention if it only made this noise when I performed an operation like saving a document, but it's doing it when the computer is, for the most part, idle. What is this noise, and is it normal?

Also, I've noticed that, where the metal casing meets the grey plastic in the bottom right corner of the PB, there is a small gap. It's only very slight, but it's also the only gap and therefore quite noticeable when you know what to look for! When I look closely from a lower angle, I can see that the metal is slightly higher than the plastic, whereas in all other areas they meet at the exact same level. I tried pushing down on it gently to see if there's any give in it, but it's solid as rock. I can't see how it could have been damaged, as I use my PB as a desktop solution and am very careful but to knock it. Does this slight imperfection sound normal?

[nagromme]

HDs to click and clunk a little--keep an ear on it, but I bet it's normal. As for WHEN the HD is accessed--it's normal for the OS to do all kinds of caching and other HD activity on its own, not always in time with your actions. I wouldn't expect it to run ALL the time, though. Maybe use the Process Viewer to see if you've got something running all the time? Or just do a test with the Finder alone running, and see if the HD stops after a bit? (Don't forget to tell the HD to sleep when possible, using Preferences > Energy Saver.)

As for the gap, I wouldn't say it's normal (as in intended) but I have heard other cases of some warping in the metal. A few warped ones seem to get through. If you decide you care enough, you could ask Apple to fix/replace the warped part. It might take some convincing--and it would mean some time away from your 'Book. But Apple's top-quality styling and fit can make one little flaw pretty irritating!

[Badwisdom]

I think i know which noise you're referring to. It sounds like a hard disk access, with a regular soft click, and it seems to come from under the J letter. On my PB17B i actually managed to remove this noise by putting the CPU performance in energy management settings to automatic or low. It then goes away. As soon as i switch to high performance CPU this permanent noise comes again. And it bothers me somewhat.

So it seems to me this is related to the CPU. But why and is it normal i cannot say.