[cryer]

I was simply changing some options in dragthing... and it gave me a beach ball.. i could still move the cursor around and access other programs but dragthing was frozen. then i noticed this noise.. it was a faint squealing noise coming from the powerbook.. not sure what it is at all. hard drive? no idea.. this powerbook is only a couple months old.. its a 17-inch 1.67 pb

i did a hard reboot by holding the power button.. then waited a few minutes and turned it back on. i immediately heard the "power on" sound effect but the screen was black. it was black for about 5-8 seconds or so and then finally the screen showed the apple icon and the twirling "thinking" icon underneath.. desktop then appeared and everything is ok now, dont hear that noise anymore. but should i be worried?

anyone experience this before? the squealing noise?

[f1000]

Back up your drive now. Don't move files around or delete anything; just do a straight backup. Next, run Hardware Test and DiskWarrior.

[vertigo]

I have a brand new PB 17" 1.67 and have noticed a very faint "squeal" from what seems the lower left area below the keyboard. It comes and goes and I have not had any software or hardware issues. I'm determined to see if it happens during high disk activity, or high processor usage. No clue so far, and it's not doing it right now. I had guessed it was the fan making the noise, but who knows?

[Tyrven]

I am having this exact issue with my brand new PowerBook G4 15". I had the screen black out for about 8 hours (external monitor worked, but LCD wouldn't work even after reboots, resetting the PRAM, VPRAM, PMU, etc). After that everything is working fine but I get intermittent squealing noises when programs access the harddrive; during this time, this program hangs. It appears to be a problem with the harddrive. I'm going to go to Mac and try to get my drive replaced before I have a major hardware failure. I'm not sure waht the connection with teh display is, if any.

Also, the sound it makes is just damned annoying.

I have this problem especially with Outlook. Er, Entourage, I mean. It may rely on data on the drive more often? Not sure.

[rafterman]

Originally Posted by Tyrven

I am having this exact issue with my brand new PowerBook G4 15". I had the screen black out for about 8 hours (external monitor worked, but LCD wouldn't work even after reboots, resetting the PRAM, VPRAM, PMU, etc). After that everything is working fine but I get intermittent squealing noises when programs access the harddrive; during this time, this program hangs. It appears to be a problem with the harddrive. I'm going to go to Mac and try to get my drive replaced before I have a major hardware failure. I'm not sure waht the connection with teh display is, if any.

Also, the sound it makes is just damned annoying.

I have this problem especially with Outlook. Er, Entourage, I mean. It may rely on data on the drive more often? Not sure.

By "brand new" do you mean the powerbooks that came out last Wednesday or one before that?

[thickdrummer]

I had the same problem with my 1.5ghz PB. It was only a couple of months old when it started screeching when the HD was spinnin hard.. I had it serviced under warranty but Apple said they couldnt find anything wrong with it...2months later the hard-drive failed and i lost all my data, (luckily had a back up at my bro's 200miles away!).
Anyway, thanks to Applecare's crappy engineers, it was taken for repair 5times and now im being sent a brand new 1.67ghz PB.
I would recommend having it serviced, backing up and running some HD utilities! Good luck

[seanc]

My iBook G4 does this and it is rather irritating and worrying but it's still going strong.
It seems to do it when copying things from the network back and forth.
I don't think it's dying as I have Smart Reporter running and it's never reported any errors.

My iBook G3 on the other hand is annoying me, clank clank, beachball.
Oh well, another excuse for me to crack it open