New 27" i3 iMac noisy HDD

Just bought a 27" i3 iMac at Best Buy yesterday. As soon as I turn it on, I can hear what sounds like a stomach grumble, similar to when you're hungry. Very, very frustrating. It seems to happen when I'm loading applications or scrolling through several songs in iTunes or pictures in iPhoto. It's as if the HDD is being accessed and it makes a sound when you want to get something.

I have a similar harddisk 'stomach' grumble in my brand new 27" iMac. Scrolling through a webpage, typing in a document, using iPhoto, it's always there. This seems to be the sound a harddisk is supposed to make, but it's driving me crazy. I had my HDD ( 1TB seagate ST31000528AS ) replaced by another one ( same model ) and it didn't make any difference. So now i'm considering upgrading to a 2TB hitachi, which should make considerably less noise. Anyone has experience with this? I've worked on previous iMacs and could hear a little disk activity when copying files or installing something but not like this. It's embarrassing when people see my new mac and they hear the sound it makes...

Similar Messages

Can I use iMac's HDD as a second, bootable drive for new PC?

When I replace an old PC with a new PC, I always keep the old HDD around in case I need to boot into it for some reason. I simply plug it in, select it as the boot drive, and it's sort of like using my old PC again.
Can I also do this with my iMac's HDD and a new PC? So I could effectively dual boot between my existing Windows OS on my PC's SSD, and OSX using my old iMac's HDD?
When I do this with two HDDs each using Windows, all the drivers for the new hardware "plug-and-play" the first time I boot with the old HDD, so input and display works. I'm not sure if I'll have the same luxury in this scenario or if I'd need to pre-load new drivers so OSX works with the PC's hardware. My iMac has a AMD (well it was still ATI back in 2009) Radeon HD 4850. I had this same card in an old PC so I would hope the display would still work as well, or worst case scenario I could simultaneously use the iMac HDD with the Radeon 4850 in a PC.
I have a lot of computers sitting around and I'm moving soon, so I want to consolidate what I can so I don't have to take so much with me when I move. My iMac's display is no good (barely functional, definitely not pretty) so I don't want to keep the big iMac around anymore if I can just keep the little HDD.
Of course I back up important files and can always read the HDD from a PC, but I'm interested in seeing if I can still use the drive for booting into OSX.
I'm sure someone's tried to do this before, but my searches turned up with nothing. I'll greatly appreciate any guidance, suggestions, or general thoughts about how I could achieve this. I don't mind getting my hands dirty if a solution exists but isn't simple. Thanks in advance for your input!

Hi, are you talking about removing the drive from the iMac to use in a PC?
If your talking about booting the PC into OSX, then google hackintosh.

Whats better? iMac with HDD or MAcbook Pro with SSD?

Just like the title says, I am split with what to buy.
I am thinking of the new 27" iMac (1TB HDD) in which I would look to upgrade ram to 16GB. This iMac is the £1,600 one, not the £1,750 one.
OR
The older 13" MacBook Pro (without Retina display) as I would be able to change the HDD to a 480Gb SSD and also upgrade the ram to 16GB.
I wanna know what machine would be faster for any tasks, like faster loading etc. I also use programmes such as Photoshop.
I'm not sure what one would be better as to why I'm asking here. Processing/ load up speeds and also non-lag are what I'm after really.
If any more info is needed, I will reply!
Many thanks!

Ideally I would get the iMac with a SSD but as my parent is partly funding this they don't want to get it off the Apple store directly, as they can get a good work discount through PC World (UK technical store if the USA don't have it ) and they only have the HDD version
But yeah, there's a lot of articles that say for speed and performance, it's the Hard drive and Ram that make the difference and not the processor so although iMac is better in that aspect I think I trust many, many articles aha!

Should I get standard hard drive or fusion drive on a new 21.5" iMac?

I'm thinking about getting a new 21.5" iMac. How do I decide whether to get the standard hard drive (5400 rpm) or the Fusion Drive? Besides Web surfing and email, I would be using it to play flash games, listen to Internet radio, and stream movies occasionally on Netflix.

@TmanW:
Technically you cannot control where data goes on the Fusion drive 100% of the time as in the case of a two drive setup (SSD + HDD), but you can tilt where the data goes by watching disk usage and also partioning. My understanding how the Fusion drive works from MacPerformanceGuide.com (where they tested the Fusion on a late 2012 27" iMac) is that as long as you do not have more the 112GB filled on the Fusion, the drive won't kick data to the HDD when peforming tasks that use more than the 4GB buffer. I interpret this to mean as long as I keep the capacity below this 112GB threshold, I am more likely to get SSD performance. And to keep things under this threshold, one could just use the Fusion drive for system and apps only and perhaps targeted file usage (working Photoshop files that would be transferred back to non-SSD storage afterwards).
MPG also tested the Fusion drive with a partition method that biases the first partition to be 2/3 SSD and in this scenario a user can effectively (though once again not 100%) target SSD usage most of the time.
Once I get my new iMac, prior to cloning my existing system on to the Fusion drive, I will see firsthand if these tests are true to form with their results.

New late 2013 iMac running slow

I purchased a new 21 in iMac in Dec 2013 (late 2013 model), and ever since, its been running very slow. Its slowness is mostly erratic and random, however very noticeable while running Office for Mac documents (Word & Excel), it takes anything from 30 sec - 1 min just to launch these apps. And equally slow while running Aperture (I am a photographer and this is my primary app). I usually end up restarting the iMac several times a day in the hope that it'll speed up. Every one who has seen me work on it has laughed that its slower than most ancient Windows machines.
Over the past few months, with support from Apple customer service, I have reformatted, re-partitioned and reinstalled Maverics on the iMac (and my MBP, which has the same issues), and done everything else that apple normally recommends as routine procedure, but no improvement in performance. The Apple support person has now stopped responding to my calls or emails.
What could be possible issues?
In my system preferences pane, there is 'Flash player' and 'Java' in the non-system apps installed. I guess we cant do without either of these.
Could there be a problem with my data? The data on my iMac is the same as on my MBP, as I transfered it via TimeMachine when i purchased the iMac.

hi Here is the report from EtreCheck generated on my iMac. Any suggestions on what the issue could be and how to resolve it are welcome. There is 200+ GB free space on the 1TB drive.
EtreCheck version: 1.9.11 (43) - report generated 4 June 2014 1:55:59 pm IST
Hardware Information:
          iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013)
          iMac - model: iMac14,3
          1 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 4 cores
          8 GB RAM
Video Information:
          NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - VRAM: 1024 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.3 (13D65) - Uptime: 0 days 0:55:33
Disk Information:
          APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 disk0 : (1 TB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 999.35 GB (215.83 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
USB Information:
          Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
          Apple Inc. MacBook Air SuperDrive
Thunderbolt Information:
          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper:
          Anywhere
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
          [loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist Support
          [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support
          [loaded] com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
          [running] com.genieo.completer.download.plist Support
          [loaded] com.genieo.completer.update.plist Support
          [running] com.vladalexa.MagicPrefs.plist Support
User Login Items:
          None
Internet Plug-ins:
          AdobeAAMDetect: Version: AdobeAAMDetect 1.0.0.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.07 - SDK 10.6 Support
          AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.07 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.0.0 Support
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 55 Check version
Safari Extensions:
          codec-M: Version: 1.0.0.1
          Evernote Web Clipper: Version: 5.9.15
          GoPhoto.it: Version: 1.10
          Omnibar: Version: 1.2
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins:
          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
User Internet Plug-ins:
          CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.105 Support
          Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 6.0 Support
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          CleanApp Logging Service Support
          Flash Player Support
          Java Support
          MagicPrefs Support
Time Machine:
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: NO - Auto backup turned off
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 930.71 GB Disk used: 729.70 GB
          Destinations:
                    Bhaven's 3TB [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 3
                    Total number of backups: 12
                    Oldest backup: 2013-12-02 22:51:14 +0000
                    Last backup: 2014-04-26 20:48:37 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Excellent
                              Backup size 3 > (Disk size 930.71 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
               1%          WindowServer
               1%          PluginProcess
               1%          fontd
               0%          System Events
               0%          imagent
Top Processes by Memory:
          180 MB          WindowServer
          139 MB          com.apple.WebKit.WebContent
          123 MB          PluginProcess
          106 MB          mds_stores
          82 MB          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
Virtual Memory Information:
          5.50 GB          Free RAM
          1.43 GB          Active RAM
          274 MB          Inactive RAM
          819 MB          Wired RAM
          365 MB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs

I've a new account on iMac. When composing an email the contact list does not show up on the bar. WWhen I start keying in a name, it comes up with the address. How do I engage the contact list from the email?

I've a new account on iMac. When composing an email the contact list does not show up on the bar, which would allow me to select the persons I want to include on the distribution of the email. When I start keying in a name in the email, it comes up with the person's address, which shows it is synced. How do I engage the contact list from the email like I do on my old account (where a contact list icon shows up, along with the "attach" and other icons) ?

With the New Message window open, go to the View menu and select "Customize Toolbar...".
In the screen that opens, drag the item labelled "Address" into the Toolbar area of the New Message window, then click the "Done" button.
That item should be then added to the Toolbar for the New Message window.
Note that the main Mail window and the New Message window (as well as the separate message window if you open a message that way) use different toolbars - the settings/inclusions for one do not carry over to another.

Connect 24" Cinema Display with Mini DisplayPort to new 21.5' iMac

I'm having a bit of an issue attempting to connect my new 21.5' iMac to my Apple Cinema Display. The display has a mini DV port that used to connect into my MacBook Pro but now I see there is no such port on the iMac. They clearly state they offer support for it but I don't see a way to connect. Any suggestions?
Message was edited by: dbmtx

Well, a bit confused here, maybe TB...
http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/
19. How do I connect my Mini DisplayPort monitor or monitor using a Mini DisplayPort adapter to my Thunderbolt-equipped Mac when I have other Thunderbolt devices connected?
When connecting a Mini DisplayPort display or a display using a Mini DisplayPort adapter to a Thunderbolt peripheral (except as described in question 14), make sure the display is connected at the end of the Thunderbolt chain. You can use only one Mini DisplayPort device in the Thunderbolt chain.
Note: Systems with more than one Thunderbolt port, like an iMac, can have more than one Mini DisplayPort monitor or monitor connected with a Mini DisplayPort adapter connected as each Thunderbolt port can support one Mini DisplayPort display.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219?viewlocale=en_US#12

How can I connect an external monitor to the new 27 inch iMac?

I have an old PC monitor that I want to connect to my new 27 inch iMac, it's the latest edition, the one that doesn't have any mini display ports.
All I have are four USB 2.0 ports and two Thunderbolt ports. No mini display port of any kind. So is there an adapter for me? My old monitor can use either VGA or HDMI and I'm not really fussed which one I use. A link would be most helpful, surley that are more people with the same problem.

If the monitor supports vga and hdmi you probably what to use the digital hdmi over the analog vga. You need a mini-displayport to HDMI adapter. For this application mini-displayport will work when plugged into a thunderbolt connection (TB is sort of a superset of mini-displayport, the plugs and sockets are physically compatible).
Here's examples of each kind of adapter:
Mini DisplayPort | Thunderbolt® to HDMI® Adapter w/ Audio Support
Mini DisplayPort | Thunderbolt to VGA Adapter

How do I make a private album in new Photos for IMac?

How do I make a private album in the new Photos for IMac? I had one in iPhoto, and now that all the photos migrated to Photos my private album is not hidden anymore. Thanks for help!

Photos does not hide photos in albums at all. Photos can only be hidden from Moments, Collections, Years.
If you want private albums, move the photos in questions to a different Photos Library, that you keep hidden.

"Free Space" Partition disaster on new Mountain Lion iMac

"Help"
I just received a new 27 inch iMac as a replacement for my old machine, which apparently disntegrated during warranty. In setting it up, I tried to create a small partition on the hard drive to run a Linux distro for testing purposes. It seems that with the non-system disc versions of the OS this has become more complex, and what I recall as an easy process turned into a disaster where 2 of the 3 TBs on the machine are locked out as "free space". I humbly retreat from any thoughts of working with partitions on this machine - I just want to clean it up and get it to a one-partition state for music and graphic design production. I have a backup. Here is a snapshot of this nightmare:
I also note that at the top level, where I am used to seeing "Hitachi" (or whomever makes the hard drive) it says Macintosh HD. That can't be right?
Here is a diskutil list report:
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         1.3 TB     disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Hard Drive             *1.3 TB     disk1
I want to get rid of disk1, I guess, and make disk0 correspond to the 3.0 TB physical volume, not a "Logical Volume Family".
Name:         Macintosh HD
    Size:         1255995588608 B (1.3 TB)
    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 27B24C33-92E7-4DC1-99B0-165BF47601AE
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     1255995588608 B (1.3 TB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 4FDA0589-59C5-4C94-AFC1-F7E82B21A450
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 74E89BB3-AEBF-477C-B7B0-47EE71BC5BB0
            Disk:               disk1
            Status:             Online
            Size (Total):       1255676813312 B (1.3 TB)
            Size (Converted):   -none-
            Revertible:         No
            LV Name:            Hard Drive
            Volume Name:        Hard Drive
            Content Hint:       Apple_HFS
Any thoughts? restarting to Command-R seems like it would not address the partition problem at all. I suppose I could put it in target mode and use my laptop to wipe it, but I'm not sure that would address the partitions either. I am completely comfortable with removing the built-in system recovery area if necessary, as I made a system mount on a USB stick.

Two cloning programs:
SuperDuper
Carbon Copy Cloner

Major problems with my new intel g5 imac

I recently purchased a the new Intel duo imac (20", 512 ram). The computer has been a total nightmare and I finally have a little bit of time available to hopefully start addressing some of the major issues. When I first got the system, I easily hooked it up and starting using it, everything appeared to be fine. However, I began to notice almost all the applications were unstable and always lagging. For example, the pinwheel idle icon would come up for seconds at a time while switching from safari to itunes on the bottom dock. I installed CS2 on it and realized it was barely useable, it would always crash at least once or twice during a session. The application itself was so slow, it was painstaking just to clone or resize an image. I was really frustrated at this point because the system ran extremely slow compared to my 4 year old PC, which ran photoshop and the internet flawlessly. I thought that maybe I needed to start updating the OS, because I was always prompted to do so when I would start the system up.
I was hoping maybe the updates would make the system more stable and fix the problems I was having. I went ahead and approved all the updates to the OS etc. The update on the OS was around 190 megs, so I went to dinner and came back. When I got home it told me the updates where complete, I just needed to restart. Upon restarting I was met with a flashing Apple, the system would not allow me to get into the OS, it was stuck at start up with a flashing apple with an X through it. I did nothing but download the updates and restart. After an hour of trying to boot up in every why possible, I finally had to boot from CD, nothing solved the problem (disk repair etc). I finally had to break down and reinstall the OS.
Now I am back to square one again, the system is useable but every application is painfully slow. I can't for example, Use Safari, listen to itunes and type in Word. It has to be one or the other, if not the lag is unbearable. Photoshop CS2 is once again barely useable, when you start the application up you can literally read every name that comes up in the splash screen because it goes so slowly (on my PC all that start up info flew by so fast I couldn't make out any of it).
I am at my wits end with it because I love the system I just need it to be functional. I was on some other forums and people suggested I had bad ram, but I have no way to test if the ram is actually bad. Others said I was a moron for trying to run CS2 on a intel mac because it barely works (go figure). They said my only option to running decent applications like photoshop consistently was to install boot camp then windows. I don't want the solution to my problems to be the installation of an OS that I am trying to move away from, because of its supposed inferiority. I think it's sad that people need to install windows just to run photoshop and/or any software with high requirements because the new Intel mac does such a poor job. I know I need to update the system and the OS, but I don't want to have to reinstall and lose everything if it fails upon restarting again. I want things to stop crashing out of no where. Can someone please help me.
Some screen captures of some crashes.
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f384/brad561/crash1.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f384/brad561/Picture1.jpg
PS: I Xbenched my Imac I got a score of 50.05 the average for all is 65.48 Why is that?
Respectfully,
-sb

I do know that it is easy enough to test the RAM yourself to a fairly good degree.
Memtest is simply the best ram-testing utility for the Macintosh platform with the ability to find intermittent memory problems that are the frequent cause of unexplained crashes or freezes in Macs running MacOSX. Memtest can identify random memory problems that commercially available utilities miss completely.
Memtest 4.13 is now distributed as a universal binary. Just double-click the OS X image file to mount it and then double click the package file to install. Besides providing support for the new Intel-based Macs, version 4.13 also adds improved status reporting for each of the individual tests.
http://www.memtestosx.org/
Memory: 512MB is very minimal. Meaning programs may not have enough to load into memory or take advantage of OS X memory management. Rosetta is almost a mini-OS but very RAM hungry. If you can, I would add another 1GB of memory at a minimum. But first test what you have now.
Also, do run Apple Hardware Test fully as well.
In a very rare case, it could be the disk drive itself that just needs to be erased.
Have you tried repairing your disk drive from the Install DVD? good idea. And backup your system and files to FireWire goes mostly without saying as essential.
If your system does do a forced shutdown/freeze, I would not rely on it repairing itself, I like to boot into Single User Mode (command + s) and run the fsck routine.
CS3 will not be out for -?- 9 months or more and then be "Universal Binary" format. Until then, well, CS2 is itself memory hungry and people buy G5s etc so that they can use 4GB RAM or more.
The ideal would be to upgrade to 2GB RAM, Micron/Crucial or Samsung as well as RAMjet, some place reliable and that warrants their memory fully. I don't think you'll be happy with just the 512MB. And everything was fine to begin with, so that's good.
And there probably are some special concerns with Photoshop, with plug-ins or other applications, or just a corrupt plist/pref file.
Without "adequate" or enough memory, any OS is going to page itself to death, 'thrashing' as it is unable to page into memory enough to run properly.
OS: 80-200MB
Safari or web browser: 80-400MB
etc.

I have Photoshop CS2 for the MAC and it stopped working on my MAC. I recently bought a new MAC, an iMAC. There appears to be no way to contact Adobe about this. What do I do? Ed

I have Photoshop CS2 for the MAC and it stopped working on my MAC. I recently bought a new MAC, an IMAC and it doesn't work on that either. There appears to be no way to contact Adobe. What do I do? Thanks, Ed

That because the activation servers were retired. Now for the good news:
Adobe has provided a non-activation version of Photoshop CS2 free of charge for their CS2 license holders.
Download the Mac version of Photoshop (not the suite) and copy down the serial number next to it. Do not use your original serial number or cs2 disc.
Download Acrobat 7 and CS2 products
Uh... one more thing CS2 is PPC only. OSX 10.6.8 has Rosetta to run legacy PPC products. 10.7 and above will not.
Good luck,
Gene

Im trying to download the new itunes so i can use my iphone 5 , however , the new itunes requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later and i cant seem to install that onto my imac even after searching for the new update (my imac is currently on 10.5.8.

.Im trying to download the new itunes so i can use my iphone 5 , however , the new itunes requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later and i cant seem to install that onto my imac even after searching for the new update (my imac is currently on 10.5.8.

You have already seen that you cannot load the new iTunes into your 10.5.8, so as Neil says, you need Snow Leopard (current cost £14). And you'll probably need to update the disc you buy via the combo update, though that is free.
As far as the new iTunes is concerned, there's been a certain amount of grumbling so you may want to study the forums before you update. The main problem has been with album artwork which does not transfer easily.

I just bought the new late 2013 iMac. Can I get the new iWork for free?

I just bought a new late 2013 iMac. Can I get the new iWork for free? I updated it to Mavericks also. The Mac App store is showing $19.99 for each iWork component (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). I also bought the previous iWork version, if that matters. Free updates for iPhoto and iMovie seemed to show up with no problems. Maybe these are just glitches that will clear up in a couple of days?

Hi. If you want it to get updated, this should take care of it.
1. Uninstall iWork from your Mac.
2. Do a fresh install of iWork from DVD.
3. Install iWork update from Apple Downloads (direct link here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1563)
4. Sign into the Mac App Store, and check for updates. It should now show up as a free update. You may have to give it a few minutes (i.e. 10-15 minutes).
I've been a Windows user for years, so I know all of the tricks by now. I had hoped I would not need this knowledge for a Mac, but oh well...
Good luck.

HT4889 Migration Assistant to update my new Mountain Lion iMac from an external USB hard disk drive, it is constantly saying that it is "looking for other computers". It doesn't find the external drive. Why is it looking for other computers?

I'm trying to use Migration Assistant to update my new Mountain Lion iMac from an external USB hard disk drive. I told it to look for a drive, yet it is constantly saying that it is "looking for other computers". It doesn't find the external drive ... it just endlessly looks for other computers. Why is it looking for other computers at all, when I told it not to?

Wow, the wording in Migration Assistant is misleading. I've never used it before, so I thought I would try to copy my files from the external drive ... my old iMac died, but I managed to get everything I need off it, using the 'cp' command in single-user mode. So I guess I'll just have to manually copy the files from the external drive to the new machine. I was hoping that Migration Assistant might help somehow, but obviously not.
Thanks for the quick reply!

New 27" i3 iMac noisy HDD

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for