Evil-sounding Powerbook vibration...

Ok, I was sitting lengthwise on my couch last night, 1.33g 12in powerbook in lap, composing emails and slowly nodding off. Aparently I nodded a little faster than I should have, because I woke to the sound of my 'book falling onto the floor. I now realize the stupidy required for such an event to take place, but I fear it is too late...

The fall was approx. 15 inches onto a padded carpet floor. No immediate damage was evident, either external or internal. All files and programs seem to be working fine. However, this morning I noticed a buzzing sound (think angry-yellowjacket-buzzing-sound) coming from the front-left corner (hard drive), but ONLY when the computer is moved. In other words, when the computer is still, nothing is out of the ordinary, but when I pick it up, tilt it side-side or front-back, or move it in any direction at all faster than, say, 1/2 mile per hour, it emits that angry buzz until the moving stops.

Needless to say, I'm pretty concerned that I've done some serious damage here. It was a July '04 purchase, so its off warranty, too. I've run disk utility and SMARTreporter, both of which return no problems. Please help, and advice would be greatly appreciated...

Maybe something is loose and hitting a fan or something.
Open it up and see.
Replacement parts here: http://pbfixit.com/

DCraver said:

Maybe something is loose and hitting a fan or something.
Open it up and see.
Replacement parts here: http://pbfixit.com/

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm pretty sure that the noise is coming from the hard drive. The noise only happens when the computer is moved while it's on, and if I move it while the HD is spinning down (when going to sleep, for example) the noise decreases proportionately to the speed of the hard drive. ie-buzzing becomes slower and quieter as the HD spins down.

My best guess is that the shock loosened the disk in its mountings, and now any sort of movement brings it into contact with its housing? As I menioned earlier, it doesn't seem to have adversely affected performance yet, its merely a frustrating annoyance. That said, I'm hesitant to open it up, for fear of making things worse. Do any of you Mac-Forums heavy hitters have any ideas?

Thanks...
alex

This should seem obvious, but back up your stuff. Now. All of it. Then after you've backed everything up, download AppleJack (applejack.sourceforge.net, I think) and run it; sometimes AppleJack sees things that the usual stuff doesn't see.

Beyond that, you're pretty much stuck wtih the noise unless you want to either open it or pay someone else to open it. If it's out of warranty, it might be cheaper to send it somewhere like TechRestore or MacResQ.