annoying beep

I just bought 15" MacBook pro. My first mac. There is a faint beep coming from the left side about once every 15 seconds. Its only audible in complete silence, but that is common for me, and its making me crazy. I called support. They had me remove battery and reset, but it didnt fix. Any ideas? I love it otherwise. Thanks.

-Frank

No?

No takers here? I was told mac ownership was like a new family. No one has similar experience? Is this normal? Thanks

This is the first time I've heard of that particular problem. Since it would do no harm, you could try the fsck (file-system check) thing here, starting with the second paragraph. Ignore the Firefox stuff.

Are you near an Apple store? If so and fsck does nothing, you could make a genius-bar appointment and take the thing in.

Also, you might try playing soft music on your mac in the background to cover the sound of the beep.

Or, you could check system preferences to see if you are downloading mail every 15 or so seconds with a beep as notification--which is the most likely explanation I can think of for you.

Is it a beep coming from the speaker or from the laptop itself?

My old Toshiba laptop would have a beep like what you are talking about when I plugged it in. It's the battery charging (The Energy!) lol. Probably why Apple had you take out and restart the whole battery thing.

It's nothing to be worried about, just something to be annoyed with and probably wont' get fixed.

thanks

Thanks guys. I'll def check settings for mail. Music playing in background not an option. Take on train a lot. Noise sounds like its coming from computer, not speaker, but very possible. Ill keep u posted

I have the EXACT same thing happening with my 15" MacBook Pro. Left side, frequent and random, faint blip sound that doesn't seem to be coming from the speaker. It's loud enough to drive me crazy and still happens with the volume on mute. It can' be my mail as I don't have an account set up. Just upgraded from Tiger to Leopard but no difference...

OK, my search brought me to:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1001366&tstart=180

Which in turn brought me to:
http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

The HDAPM utility seems to have fixed my problem; I haven't heard The Sound since installing it at 2pm today. I hope it works for you.

I'm having a similar problem on my Macbook. Specifically, I hear a beep of varying length and amplitude at random intervals. It is not coming from the speakers (I hear it when the sound it muted). I can't place exactly where it's coming from, but I think it's from the rear of the computer. I saw some mention that it could be the hard drive failing. Everything else I've seen on the subject has been of 0 help. I actually even have a friend who is a Mac genius and he had no clue. I plan on bringing it in to an Apple store, but I'd love to hear from anyone who's gotten this problem fixed.

"Blip" sound ... SSD's too?

I'm new to Mac's and have owned a Aluminum, Macbook for a couple of weeks.

I've heard this "blip", every 30 - 60 second's, as has been reported in numerous threads here as well as on the Apple support forum. I've seen a few reference's going back more than a year even.

Many guess that it may manifest itself when the hard-drive park's.

Perhaps someone who uses an SSD would help by checking for this sound?

I've got this on a new Macbook Pro 17" 2.93 Unibody.
It came with a Seagate 320G@7200 Momentus drive (ST9320421ASG).
It is definitely coming from the hard drive.
I have an identical computer sitting next to it that came with a Hitachi 320@7200 drive and while that drive makes the swish/click idle sound that i hear on all Hitachi drives, it does not have the annoying high pitch "beep" that the Seagate does.

My brother bought a 500 gb WD Passport, got it out of it's shell and put it in his macbook unibody. This also started beeping, so he got a new one. Now everything is fine.
There's a big chance the beeping comes from the harddisk, so when you call Apple, tell them you think it's the HDD.
Good luck!

Quick question: is it a beeping sound or more of a buzz?

more of a "blip"....

bad.heron said:

Quick question: is it a beeping sound or more of a buzz?

Click to expand...

Definitely not a buzz. And I wouldn't say a beep.

It's a non-periodic, quite sounding "blip". Sort of like a drip from an annoyingly, leaky faucet when you're trying to sleep type "blip".

i want to add that since November I have had 3 Macbook Pro 15" units and 2 Macbook Pro 17" units. All of them have had the 320 @ 7200 CTO option. Two of the 15" computers had Hitachi drives, and one had the Seagate 7200.3 Momentus. The Seagate was definitely the quietest and the best. Then the first Macbook Pro 17" had a Hitachi, which works well but is a bit louder and has regular clicking noises. The second Macbook Pro 17" came with a Seagate 7200.3 Momentus. This is the one that beeps. All the Hitachi drives click and they have a louder operational hum to them. Since they all make the same noises it doesn't bother me, and for some reason a click is more tolerable than a beep. Every notebook I've had has a clicking hard drive.

However, this latest Seagate is the identical model as the last one I had, yet this one beeps. I think there must be some kind of issue with it, although it seems to perform just fine. What I like about the Seagate drives is that they don't have the clicking that Hitachi and Samsung have. This beep/blip/whatever it is though is somehow profoundly annoying.

Summary:

5 Unibody Macbook Pros with CTO 320@7200 HDs:

3 Hitachi Travelstars - All sound the same (mild hum, clicks)
2 Seagate Momentus 7200.3 - One silent, one beeps.

If this "blip"/"beep" you're all talking about sounds like a dripping faucet, then yes, it very well could be a failing hard drive. My sister and I both got the same model 15' unibody macbook pro. Mine started making the noise while my sister's did not. I only bought it 3 days ago so I brought it to the apple store and the guy took it into the back so he could hear it since it's such a faint noise. He came back out and told me that it was definitely the hard drive and could be an indicator of a failing drive. I got it exchanged for a new one no questions asked and it was very hassle free. if you have applecare definitely call them.