Fan noise when tilting the MBP (Late 2008)

When I tilt my new MBP to the front or to the side (maybe 30 to 50°), it makes a louder noise than usual. Thus, this also occurs when I put the MBP on a notebook stand. I suppose, it comes from a fan. Another MBP I tried, did not make this noise.
When the notebook is just standing even on a table, I hear this buzzing sound we can read about in another thread. But really quiet. I have to put my ear quite close to the keyboard.
And I hear a quiet and deeper unbalanced sound. But this could also come from the hard drive.
Is the phenomenon I described a problem or could it turn into one? Might this noise (these noises) even get louder or might some part fail? Do some of you also hear this noise (these noises) on their MBP or MB?
As I feel that no device is abolutely perfect, I am a bit worried about getting the MBP exchanged. Everything else seems to be fine. None of the typical and widespread problems.
Is the mentioned phenomenon something I do not have to worry about too much and that can be repaired without any problems at a later date at a local store?
Thank you in advance!

Thank you for your answers!
Unfortunately we do not have the same service infrastructure in Germany as over here Apple distributes its products primarily through premium resellers. The original Apple stores are just starting in Europe. But the resellers have their own Apple certified service technicians. I hope the fan replacement really doesn't take longer than one workday.
Can each of the fans inside the MBP be replaced easily? Even the one on the graphic card? How many fans are in there?
Is it possible that this buzzing sound doeas not occur all the time?
This deeper unbalanced noise seems to come from another source. Somehow you could say it is a pulsation. Can you hear this noise as well?
Would you suggest me to get the MBP exchanged (maybe for a device with other problems) or repaired?

Similar Messages

MBP Late 2008 Hard Drive Questions

Hi,
I have used PC most of my life and have used Mac OS when related to graphics and video, i find both to have their own benefits. I finally bought my first mac, it got delivered yesterday, the macbook pro late 2008, i got it on a good sale which however limited me to get the 320GB 5400rpm model, and i actually was aiming to get 320GB 7200rpm model. Now that i have this laptop, i wanted to install a new 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive since this laptop model allows you to do that yourself without voiding the warranty. In order to do so, i got this and plan to use my current 5400 rpm drive as a USB:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/DIY0A57547F8/
first of all, as someone new to mac, and even though i have been super impressed by the quality of this product, my first disappointment is the fact that apple offers you to easily replace the hard disk in the mbp but does not sell the hard disk at the apple store or on phone, or allow you to bring the laptop in for HD replacement, and expects you to fill this nice beautiful laptop with third party products, (i wanted a hard disk with the an apple sticker on it just like my current one has - i know its a Hitachi... but apple has the thick black apple sticker on it!! ), i was on phone with apple for 30 mins and they eventually couldn't sell it to me after being confused about it, all they could offer me was a replacement laptop with a 10% restocking fee charge (approx $250). i contacted a mac authorized service center and they quoted me "$332" for that hard disk from apple (Hitachi 7k320), its at $95 (and a -$20 rebate) at buy.com - without the apple sticker, same model.
now that disappointment aside, i am still optimistic with my choice and have the following questions, please correct me if any of my understanding anywhere in this post is incorrect:
1. when i install my new hard disk, what type of disk formatting should i use? - i want to be able to boot from windows xp x64 professional, i will be using it almost as much as i will use mac osx (for graphics n video), since i want to be able to run some particular PC applications on full speed that i constantly use and also play some PC games (i know many people here may argue that i dont need windows at all, however i assure you i have some good necessity for it ). Will the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatting allow me to boot from xp later? any tips related to this area?
2. There are 2 ways to install my new hard disk.
Route 1: http://eshop.macsales.com/techcenter/techtips/sparedrive.cfm
Route 2 (considering since my mbp is new and fresh out of the box 1 day ago): http://eshop.macsales.com/techcenter/index.cfm?page=/manuals/mac/clondata.html
which one would you recommend?
3. Once i have the hitachi 7k320 installed, and the 5400rpm that came with the product removed, should i expect any different or limited service/warranty from apple care? if anything ever goes wrong in the mbp (except the hard disk), i can send it to apple with the replaced hard disk in it and it will all be acceptable and OK, right?
4. Has anyone here installed a Hitachi 7k320 drive in a MBP Late 2008? if yes, were there any sort of noise/vibration issues after installation?
5. What brand would you prefer for an internal drive for the MBP Late 2008? it originally comes with a Hitachi.

1. Prep the new drive as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one (1.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete your OS X installation. You can restore other pre-bundled software using the Install Pre-bundled Software installer that is on the OS X Installer Disc One.
In order to install Windows you will need to use Boot Camp Assistant in the Utilities folder to create the Windows partition on your hard drive and assist with the installation. You can install the 32-bit version of XP w/SP2 or SP3 or Vista 32-bit or 64-bit. Windows drivers are included on your OS X Installer Disc One and should be installed after you boot into Windows.
If you must use the 64-bit version of XP you cannot use Boot Camp, but you could use VM software such as Parallels or VM Fusion. See the following:
Windows on Intel Macs
There are presently several alternatives for running Windows on Intel Macs.
1. Install the Apple Boot Camp software. Purchase Windows XP w/Service Pak 2 or Vista. Follow instructions in the Boot Camp documentation on installation of Boot Camp, creating Driver CD, and installing Windows. Boot Camp enables you to boot the computer into OS X or Windows.
2. Parallels Desktop for Mac and Windows XP, Vista Business, or Vista Ultimate. Parallels is software virtualization that enables running Windows concurrently with OS X.
3. VM Fusionand Windows XP, Vista Business, or Vista Ultimate. VM Fusion is software virtualization that enables running Windows concurrently with OS X.
4. CrossOver which enables running many Windows applications without having to install Windows. The Windows applications can run concurrently with OS X.
5. VirtualBox is a new Open Source freeware virtual machine such as VM Fusion and Parallels that was developed by Solaris. It is not yet fully developed for the Mac - some features are not yet implemented - but it does work otherwise.
6. Last is Q. Q is a freeware emulator that is compatible with Intel Macs. It is much slower than the virtualization software, Parallels and VM Fusion.
Note that Parallels and VM Fusion can also run other operating systems such as Linux, Unix, OS/2, Solaris, etc. There are performance differences between dual-boot systems and virtualization. The latter tend to be a little slower (not much) and do not provide the video performance of the dual-boot system.
See MacTech.com's Virtualization Benchmarking for comparisons of Boot Camp, Parallels, and VM Fusion.
Boot Camp is only available with Leopard. The Boot Camp Beta that was used with Tiger has expired and is no longer available for use. So contrary to the other poster's comment, Boot Camp isn't truly "free." You must purchase Leopard to get it.
As for warranty if you read yours you will find the caveat that if you perform a DIY replacement your warranty is not affected unless you cause consequential damage in which case the warranty will not cover that damage.
I have installed several Hitachi drives in my laptops, but not the current model. I've no complaints.

A word of caution when closing lid of MBP (late 2008) and placing in bag

Over the years, all the previous Mac Books I've owned went to sleep almost immediately I closed the lid. With the Unibody MBP late 2008,I thought this was no different. Until one day I arrived back home, unzipped the bag to find both fans going full tilt and a MBP very hot under the collar! It appears that the fans will continue to run until the temperature has dropped to an acceptable level even though the lid is closed and the display is off.
The moral of this ramble is to wait until the light on the front starts to pulse before placing your MBP in bag. Thankfully there was no visible damage to the MBP, but, if it had been left any longer, could have ended up with a cracked display or worse, a battery fire!

janesdroid wrote:
Over the years, all the previous Mac Books I've owned went to sleep almost immediately I closed the lid.
Safe Sleep is the process of writing the RAM contents to the hard disk, which occurs after you close the lid and before the light starts to pulse. It's actually been a feature of Mac portables since the PowerBook G4 (Double-Layer SD), in late 2005. All MacBooks, MBPs, and MBAirs have had it since day 1. That's what you're interrupting when you move the computer before the light starts to pulse, which can cause an unexpected subsequent wake up.
Apple warns against moving a portable computer before the light begins pulsing:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA25026
Note that the more RAM you have, the longer the process takes.

EFI-Update MBP Late 2008

Hi everybody,
I'm experiencing problems with the EFI-Update for MBP, late 2008. It does not work at all, I've retried this several times and my Laptop just gets a grey Background, the bar at the top stays, I can move the mouse and click on the "apple" - but that's it.
To get my Laptop back to life I had to hold the powerbutton and restart. The same happens now when I just want to shutdown my Laptop, grey background etc.
Does anybody else experience the same? How will this be fixed?
Thanks,
Wayne

Ok.. I figured it out! Last night I made many discoveries about my MacBook pro 15" late 2008 model. First off I thought the sucker died with the 3 bad tone beeps. However this turned out to be a bad memory dimm (modual) which I learned on another thread. By proccess of elmination I figured out which dim this was. So this more than likley than anything else has to do with my Kernel panics in the past (Not Lion and Not EFI).
Secondly I looked around more threads because I was supiscous the EFi update was failing because I had my setup with a Master Boot Record partitioning scheme. As it turns out the EFI updates can only be applied if you have a GPT partitioning scheme. Therefore I had to erase / format and lose my Windows partition just for an update (This is not ideal at all).
So first I backed up to TimeMachine then I erased and then reloaded LION on the newley formated GPT drive via TimeMachine. Once back up I applied the EFI 2.8 Firmware update and it installed perfectly.
This definatley needs to be documented better than having to search discussions thread. Secondly the only reason I was using MBR in the first place was because it was difficult to setup the Windows 7 install on the GPT partition. One Windows 7 doesnt like and 2 Mac OSX with disk util can easily mess it up. If you make any change renaming drives... anything in Windows 7 on in Computer Management / Disk management you will hose your Windows machine. This is because the pointer to the Windows 7 OS gets lost in the GPT as it gets modified incorrectly.
So in my mind Apple is poorly supporting dual booting (Boot Camp). This is unsat as it was originally heavily advertised with bootcamp.
Oh well I guess I will hit virtual box and get more memory via this new EFI update.

Has anyone resolved the whirring sound from the Macbook late 2008 Optical Drive Self-diagnostic yet?

Has anyone resolved the whirring sound from the Macbook late 2008 Optical Drive Self-diagnostic yet?

Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
If the hard drive does not appear in the DU sidebar list then it has died and will have to be replaced. No need to proceed beyond this point.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

My mac mini only shows a steady power light and fan noise when powered up. No video or sound and no commumication with wired keyboard or optical mouse. Tried replacing internal battery and resetting PMU/SMC but nothing seemed to happen. Any suggestions?

My mac mini only shows a steady power light and fan noise when powered up. No video or sound and no commumication with wired keyboard or optical mouse. Tried replacing internal battery and resetting PMU/SMC but nothing seemed to happen. Any suggestions? Many thanks! Richard

You've already done the two things I would have suggested.
If your Mini has an internal battery then I assume it's a G4. That means you've gotten a lot of good years of service from it, and it's old enough that it's certainly not covered by AppleCare anymore, and it's probably not worth spending money trying to repair it.
You should be able to tear it apart using instructions from ifixit.com to get the hard drive out, and then put the hard drive into a nice USB or FireWire enclosure (I like the ones from Other World Computing, macsales.com) so you can transfer your data to a replacement Mac.
I hope someone has another suggestion for you.

Fan noise coming from the macbook air, and battery won't charge?

Brand new laptop and now there is a very loud fan noise coming from the computer when i opened it up this morning. I also noticed that there was no battery symbol in the top right corner, so i plugged it in to charge it but the light on the charger wont turn on so its not charging? What do i do? Thanks

Reset SMC.     http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Choose the method for:
"Resetting SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own".
    If this does not help, contact Apple.
    Best.

I have Mac Pro 2010 model and it's giving heavy fan noise,so run the Apple hardware test but it's showing the Error: 4SMC 1 40000000 please help me in this issue.

I have Mac Pro 2010 model and it's giving heavy fan noise,so run the Apple hardware test but it's showing the Error: 4SMC 1 40000000 please help me in this issue.

Same error information here.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/13083664?messageID=13083664

Two noise from right side when open the mbp

Every time when I open the laptop, there are two sound like zi zi from right side of it, before the opening music, it sounds like reading the disc, is there something wrong with the computer?

No. The OS, when the MBP is started does a diagnostics check, testing the optical drive as a part of same. That is the sound and it is normal.
Ciao.

Can I upgrade any one of the 2 GPUs on MBP, late 2008 model?

Hello Gurus,
I have a Macbook Pro, late 2008 model, with dual GPUs.
I was just wondering if there was a way to upgrade any one of the 2 GPUs? Or are the both soldered to the motherboard?
I tried to search on the Internet and the Apple communities but could not find anything addressing this specific question.
Thanks for your replies in advance!

Both soldered onto the logic board.
Sorry.

Black Screen on install of Windows 7 32 or 64bit on MBP Late 2008

I have an issue installing Windows 7 32/64bit on my late 2008 MBP from a fresh Lion 10.7.1 install. Boot Camp creates a partition just fine, recognizes the Windows install disc and restarts bongs grey screen then only displays a black screen. No cursor, nothing... but if I hit esc twice the machine restarts. I have tried removing and re-creating the partition, resetting pram and repair permissions.
Any suggestions? Is this a widespread issue?
Thanks in advance.
Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 (11B26)

I am having the exact same problem. I have late 2009 MBP with Lion 10.7.1. My harddrive has a partition and everything has been smooth. When I start the installation process, the "mac sound" starts and the screen is grey. It then turns to a black screen with an underscore in the top-left corner, then just remains blank.
We need help!

Fan noise when I Target Disk Mode - power supply or 500 GB drive, or RAM?

I have a Revision B iMac G5 which falls squarely in the power supply replacement program and has had the power supply replaced twice. I'm wondering if my extra RAM, or larger hard drive could be to blame for the fan speeds upramping at random during normal operation, and always when I Target Disk Mode the machine. I have a Western Digital WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0
and two 1 GB RAM modules with the following spec PC3200U-30330.
Before I try to pin down the cause one by one, has anyone noticed whether there are 500 GB drives on these Macs which will not up the fan speeds? Has anyone noticed whether target disk mode on these models will not increase the fan speeds when RAM is upgraded to 2 GB?

I have the same iMac as yours. Changed the original 80 gig hdd to a 250 gig. Both drives are seagate barracudas. I also upgraded the memory to 2gigs. The fan noise was terrible.
6 months later a ram module gives up the ghost. I originally thought hard drive, so purchased a Western digital 500 gig WDC WD5000AACS-00ZUB0. (The green power series).
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=338
Fans very quite. still waiting for the replacement ram module;
to see if extra ram will increase fan noise
.

Graphics problem with mbp late 2008,nvidia geforce 8600m gt.any help?

Hi,have graphics problems with my MacBook Pro 17" Late 2008.Every 3-4 days the graphics are not ok and when i want to restart there is only the apple logo but not clear and the cursor seems to be double.Sory my english is not the best.Any help for this Problem?

Get your computer to an Apple Store Genius Bar ASAP to be tested for the problem described in this article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377

Fan noise when screensaver starts

Hi
I've been reading about this issue but don't find any post that relates fan noise with screensaver.
I had fan noise problems similar to some posted... things got better,but now it only becomes unbearable when the screensaver starts.
Any ideas ?

I'm experiencing the same issue since I've replaced the standard Nvidea for an Ati Radeon HD3870 video-card. When the screensaver starts the noise of the fans increases. Don't understand it since it's just the solid colors effect.. :-s

Imac makes fan noise when it turns off or goes to sleep

Hello,
I bought a new iMac from bestbuy during the last week of april 2013.
Recently when I turn the iMac off or put it to sleep, it begins to make a loud fan noise at the back above the place where the power goes into the iMac. However, the moment I turn on the computer the sound goes away.
I left the iMac on for a few hours thinking the noise will go away on its own but it didnt. Now I always have to turn off the iMac and take the power out of the wall in order for it to not make noise.
Does anyone know what I can do to solve my problem? I have tried the SMC reset and the Pram reset however it does not seem to do the trick for me.

I would recommend resetting the SMC at least 3x back to back, sometimes it does not work the first time. If you don't know how please navigate to https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3603 for detailed instructions. If that does not help, you have 90 days of free AppleCare telephone coverage or if you already bought AppleCare (VERY STONGLY RECOMMENDED) this will extend your 1 year warranty to 3 years and includes 3 years of phone support. If you are in the USA you can buy it from B&H Photo for as little as $122 vs. at BBY or Apple for $169.

Fan noise when tilting the MBP (Late 2008)

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for