is this noise normal?

[JeffBookPro]

I just bought a 2.4ghz imac less than a week ago.
When opening programs or saving things the imac has a weird noise. It does not sound like a fan, rather a "crunching" sort of noise. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of what sound a Geiger counter makes, one of those devices that picks up radiation.

Is this a normal sound that the iMac is supposed to make? I did not really listen for it at the apple store. I know it is hard to describe sounds, lol. I might stop by best buy tomorrow and see if the other iMacs there make that noise.

edit: I did some further investigating on my iMac. The noise seems to be coming from the right side on the back, maybe even the middle. At times it is less noticeable, but when things are going on (such as syncing ipod, converting video, changing preferences, ichat) it becomes very noisy. Now I know that is normal for a hard drive, but the noise is a crunching noise like a geiger counter.

 

[KeithTeeple]

Is the noise loud enough to record? If so, record the sound and email it to me at [email protected]

 

[JeffBookPro]

At times yes. It seems to happen more often after I wake my iMac from sleep mode. I will send you a recording tomorrow after I check out best buy. Perhaps this is just a normal noise, as this is my first iMac. I have been using a macbook since 2007