Update on my HDD "whining" sound

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todd51

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Ok, whenever I had my laptop sitting on my desk at school I could easilly hear the hard drive spinning or "whining" as people called it. I decided to let it go and if it got worse I was going to send it in to Apple. However, now I have the laptop sitting on a table back at my parents' house and the HDD is not whining at all. The ONLY difference is that the laptop is NOT plugged into the AC power, it's running off of the battery. How could this affect the HDD sound?
 

rman


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Here are some questions:

At school when plugged in, do you hear the sound?
At school while using battery, do you hear the sound?

At home when plugged in, do you hear the sound?
At home when using battery, do you hear the sound?

Are both the desk at home and at school level?

Now with that asked, I believe that in most cases hard drives are not quiet. So drives are more noisy, than others.
 
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T

todd51

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I have never tested it being plugged in on my lap. Everytime I have it plugged in, it's sitting on desk. Every time it's running off of the battery though, it doesn't make the sound. Just whenever I've had it plugged in.
 
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I also have a whining sound that occurs when only running on AC power. I seems to be coming from the area where the charger plugs in to the laptop. Is this really a hard drive issue? I also read somewhere that it is the cpu because of the high currents or something and thats its normal but if it is an issue should i have it fixed?
 
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M

MJGUK

Guest
As far as I am aware the widely reported 'whining' issue with the MBP is related to a noise coming from the CPU (Core Duo Chips), rather than the HD.

Specifically, as far as I understand it....The whining noise relates to the CPU being sat in idle mode and hence generating this sound - Work arounds have been generated, such as Quiet MBP which takes up around 1-2% of the CPU, in order to keep the chips out of idle mode.

The problem is specific to Intel Core Duo 1 CPUs, I have no idea on whether it is still an issue with the 2nd revision chips, but I haven't heard anything on that yet.

Finally, as far as I am aware all MBPs ship with this 'defect', but many people report different levels of the sound on their machines.....One would assume this is all dependent on 1) Each individual's hearing 2) The exact build of each computer.

All of the above is the issue as I understand it and I may well be incorrect in some areas, but having exchanged 2 MBPs myself due to this problem I've looked into it quite a lot and the machine I have now, although it makes a VERY small 'whine' whilst charging.....is very, very quiet.

Good luck with sorting out this issue!
 

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