[JeffZPgh]

My wife's 500 is behaving strangely. It's 99% fine for normal use, but whenever she does something intensive on it, it emits a noise - like something between a high-pitched whine and a beep. I'm undecided on whether the noise sounds mechanical (i.e. hard drive issue) or more like some kind of weird feedback through the speakers. It sounds like it's coming from right under the left side of the keyboard, though (not further forward where the hard drive actually sits, but this may be a matter of acoustics).

Rebooted it into single-user mode and ran an 'fsck -y' and the drive checked out fine.

I decided to test the kinds of circumstances that make it emit the noise, and I can reproduce it at will if I do something both cpu- and disk-intensive, like untarring a .tgz file or compiling something. When the noise gets really bad, the computer almost seems to halt for a while - in this case while untarring some stuff in Terminal, the list of files being unzipped halted and Terminal itself got a beach ball for close to a minute, then some more activity, then another seeming halt.

We're talking about doing stuff that I do regularly on my 500 without issue. It's almost like her iBook is lazy and bitches about doing anything dificult.

Any diagnostic suggestions? This is a strange problem to even describe, so i'm hesitant to call Apple and sound like an idiot over the phone. I'm quite comfortable with hardware (upgraded the hard drive in MY iBook, she hasn't let me touch hers), but I've never encountered anything like this.

Thanks,
Jeff

[pat++]

There is definitely something wrong with your wife's iBook. Call Apple.

<small>[ 06-08-2002, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: pat++ ]</small>

[jtc]

Any chance of recording the whine and beep with the built-in mic? It does sound like the hard drive, but whether it's a problem or not is tough to say without being there to hear it. One of my IBM drives at work makes a click and beep every so often (more frequently when doing a lot of disk intensive tasks). I finally figured out that it was the actuator hitting the voice coil when the head was resetting and I don't worry about it now.

My drive has always done this however, if it is something that just started happening one day with yours, I might worry about it more.

[Duo]

I know what you are talking about. I get that beep also. Its hard to describe and its even harder to duplicate when I try to tell anyone about it. This has been happening to me, I think since I got my ibook, over a year ago. However, mine only makes a short beep sound right in the middle of a slow down. I never thought much of it. Should I think of it as a problem now?

Duo

[JeffZPgh]

Well, I've dropped the machine off to be repaired (called Apple and they told me to take it to my local CompUSA so the guys there could look at it). I'll post back and let you know what, if anything, they find or fix.

If it was only the noise (my wife thought she'd heard it before and had shrugged it off), I'd deal with it because I've had noisy hard drives in the past that never caused me problems. But when I try to do something as simple as unpack a .tgz file and the machine grinds to a halt thinking about it, there's a problem.

I think I concluded it must be the hard drive (and nothing else yesterday) by doing a test - mounted my wife's drive on my iBook and tried doing the same things with the same files that caused the problem on hers. Well, the problem still persisted (noise and slowdown). If I copied those exact files to my disk and then manipulated them there, I had no problems.

This is kind of a waste of time, since my wife wanted me to upgrade the drive in her machine anyhow (I put a 30GB in mine a few months ago). But I thought I'd give Apple a chance to fix anything else that may be wrong with it before I went ahead and voided the warranty.

Jeff

[JeffZPgh]

Well, the iBook didn't make it past the technician at CompUSA. He's telling me that the noise we've been hearing is the fan inside the case - thus explaining why I wasn't completely sure it sounded like a dying hard drive. So the fan is kicking in when the machine is used to intensive stuff and his summary is "functioning as designed". He said if I sent it to Apple it would just tie it up for a week or two and they'd send it back anyhow.

The only thing that confuses me is
- why have I never heard the fan in my own iBook kick on? I use it about 3 times as much as my wife uses her iBook, and I'm constantly compiling open-source software and doing all sorts of disk- and cpu-intensive operations with it.
- why would the machine slow down almost to a halt when the fan kicks in? I asked the CompUSA tech this question and he didn't really have an answer but said that the system will "seem slow when you really put it to work".

Jeff

[Voch]

I went through this a few months ago with my iBook/500/DVD (high-pitch whine, especially when I put my palm on the left hand palm rest). I called Apple and told them my machine was making a whine noise and I couldn't discern if it was the hard drive or the fan.

They sent me a repair box and I sent it off to Texas. It came back a three days later as quiet as when I bought it (the hard drive was the same but quieter and I think they replaced the fan).

Call Apple if you're still under warrenty. They'll take care of it. I got the extended warrenty after the repair because of how easy it was to take care of this.

Voch

[JeffZPgh]

Why is it that my experiences on the phone with Apple are always so different from everyone else's?

When I talked to an Apple tech on the phone Saturday afternoon there was never any mention of a "repair box" or me having an option to send it out direct. They told me based on my address that I had my choice of three area repair shops to drop the machine off with - and the only way the machine would get sent to Apple is if the technician at one of the shops deemed it necessary.

Sounds like folks without local Apple resellers have better luck.

Jeff

[ibook_steve]

Well, as usual, CompUSA has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I almost started laughing when you said that CompUSA said that the system will "seem slow when you really put it to work!" It can't be the fan for two reasons: 1) You proved it was the hard drive by moving the drive to your machine and experiencing the same problems and 2) the fan isn't even in that location! It's up by the hinge just above the SO-DIMM slot. I'd recommend saving the trouble of taking it to a "repair" shop and just replacing (and upgrading) the hard drive as you had intended. If you're still not sure, try putting your hard drive in her machine. I'll bet it runs fine without noise.

Steve

[JeffZPgh]

I'm not as sure that the CompUSA guy is full of crap. Two things maybe I didn't make clear:

- when I heard the noise, I concluded it was the hard drive because I honestly forgot there WAS a fan in the iBooks. I couldn't pinpoint the origin of the noise except that it sounded louder if I took the keyboard out.

- I didn't transfer the drive into my iBook, I just mounted it remotely and did the same operation using my machine that I had been trying on my wife's iBook itself. So her bus, network, etc. would have all still been in use.

I can swallow all of this and even ignore the noise if it wasn't for the get-really-slow-and-seem-almost-frozen part. I'm not sure how convinced I am that it's the drive now...

I'm not quite sure what to do. I may still go ahead and upgrade her hard drive, but now with hesitation - if there is indeed another problem with the machine I'll be voiding the warranty and losing any chance to get it fixed. Then again, what else could be wrong?

Jeff

[bartman00]

Guys.. I've tryed to make the fan come on in my ibook and I can't.. it simply runs cool.. The only thing that gets hot is aroudn the hard drive.. ie.. from the hard drive.

Even my OVERCLOCKED 500mhz ibook dosen't kick the fan on after hours of running dnet and sitting on my bed.

I've had to send my ibook in two times to Apple.. both time involved a quck call and them sending me a box next day air! Both times the problem was fixed and returned to me quick.. I had the hing creeking problem bad.. I sent it out on a Monday, got it back Thursday!!!

I don't know why they had you take it anywhere.. No place is alowed to work in ibooks, they have to send them to the depot. Hell I work for a Apple repare place and our Apple techs even told me don't bother and just call Apple when ever I had a hardware problem.

Bart

[JeffZPgh]

I absolutely HATE diagnosing hardware problems. So we got the machine back from CompUSA tonight, I've been playing with it for 2 hours now, and I'll be damned if I can reproduce ANY problems. I can't get the fan to come back on (IF that's what it was) and I can't find any problems with the hard disk or get any noise or lags out of it. I compiled the entire fink collection of sources I had on my iBook just for fun. Nothing, no problems.

So now, as much as I hate it, I have to agree with the CompUSA guy - there's nothing wrong with the machine that I can reproduce that would let me justify sending it in to Apple.

Grr.

I feel like I've wasted all of your time looking for feedback on this one - thanks to those of you who stopped in and read this thread.

Jeff

[bartman00]

Well if it makes you feel any better after upgrading to 10.1.5 I feel everything has gone to ****.. I get slowdowns and studders.. Every time I wake from sleep the airport is all fked up and won't connect and the time is locked up in the title bar.. ie won't update