Source of grumbling noise?

I have a Mid 2010 27" iMac, i3 3.2 GHz, Western Digital 1 TB (WDC WD1001FALS-40Y6A0). I have been trying to get some information on the source of grumbling noises that seem to be eminating from the hard drive. Every time I open an application the sound develops and there is read/write activity on the hard drive as eviidenced by Activity Monitor. Every once in a while though even when everything is closed I will hear a quick "gurgle". In a quiet room this stomach grumbling or churning noise is quite annoying. I will try to upload a sound bite of the noise and link it soon.
I have looked into other threads but have yet to finish reading them or find a clear answer for why this computer has been making these noises since day one.
I am just a month out of warranty so finding a fix or getting Apple to look at this through other means may be necessary. I would appreciate help on that as well.
Thank you all.

Check out > iMac: Evaluating normal noises

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How can I isolate individual noise sources in a noise analysis simulation?

When I do an noise analysis simulation I can get a total RMS value for the band simulated, or I can get a spectral plot.
Is there any way to identify each noise source in the simulation and it's contribution to the overall output noise?
I tried a sensitivity simulation and selected all variables for output and that may have given some of the info I am looking for. Is that correct? Or does it not include any of the noise sources that are present in the noise analysis?
Thanks.

Noise at the specified output node is the RMS sum of the contribution of all the noise sources multiplied by their respective gains between the sources and output. To zero in on the most significant noise contributing sources you need to be able to see that summation before it just becomes one RMS number. This could be done by turning on/off each noise source and re-running the simulation. This would actually be a very easy thing to provide for the developers who have access to the source code that runs this simulation.
I don't see a way to do that as it is, or to get any other form of a report of the various noise source contributions to the output. -Unless selecting each noise source for output does that, but I would like to confirm if this is true or not. What I don't want is to get the total noise at each of those source nodes as if they were the output instead of at the actual output node desired. Is that a correct understanding of how this is implemented?
I'm hoping I am wrong and the output will be as seen at the actual circuit output rather than at each source. That would be the useful way to have it work.
Now that I think about it I suppose I could create a simulation to test this, if there is no answer from other sources.
Thanks.

Another source of G5 noise

I experience beeps and chirps from the power supply, but also another kind of noise. Almost every day the door on my G5 starts vibrating. With the fans usually making very little noise I can hear the door vibrating from several feet away. This happens randomly even when the fans don't speed up. It's been going on since I received my machine in June. I have removed the door at least a half a dozen times so the problem can't be that the door is fitting incorrectly.
Stopping the noise is a simple matter of pressing lightly on the front edge of the door.
I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

A very small, thin strip of masking or electrical tape (depending on what thickness is needed) placed properly will fix things nicely. I believe there is a sensor area that you want to avoid covering up - silver colored tape as I recall.
Good luck with a simple fix

Having trouble creating noise source with PWL Source

Hello,
I am using a text file (attached) that has random values on the voltage collum, so I expected to obtain a noise source when I imported this file to my PWL source. Yet, all I see is a sawtooth kind of pattern. Could anyone help me create the noise source?
Attachments:
noise.txt ‏2 KB

Hello,
Your file seems to be working, this is what I got:
The problem I noticed in your file is the X colum (time). Your time step is 1 second; simulating the file could take hours unless you modifiy the maximum time step (TMAX) in Multisim. I better approach is to use miliseconds for the X colum. See the attached file (noiseMS.txt), I converted seconds to miliseconds. Not sure what your Multisim version is, but I'm also attaching my test circuit in v13.
Hope this helps.
Fernando D.
National Instruments
Attachments:
noiseMS.txt ‏2 KB
PWL.ms13 ‏142 KB

Panasonic Plasma TV - HDMI Audio Noise

Hi Everyone,
I've just bought a iwire minidisplay port to HDMI cable (wonderful I got to say), but somthing strange happens when I connect my MBP13"MI2010 to the TV.
The TV is a Panasonic - TX-PF46G20S. When I'm browsing in finder for some seconds, a "gneeeeeeeeeeeee" sound come from the TV. If I manually switch off the Panasonic Screen (leaving Itunes woking behind so I can here the music from the TV) the gneeeee becomes swiched off.
if I'm watching a video file, no "gneeee" sound. I bet the issue is the still image of the mac desktop as the source of that noise, but it's not normal to me.
I want to undestand if the cause is the MBP or the panasonic. If it is the panasonic, I should activate the garantie.. if the MBP13", I don't know really what to do.
Waiting for better Video card driver ?
Some help and suggestion will be very appriciated :-)
thanks
Riccardo

I've got a Panasonic Plasma and it behaves fine ...
In System Preferences/Displays/Panasonic TV click Options and make sure 'Overscan' is checked, then set the other Display options as shown below.
If this doesn't work I'd suspect there's something wrong with the TV itself

Does the noise come from harddisk or fan?

Hi all,
My powerbook 17'' always has this noise come from left side of the powerbook. I am unable to determine the source of the noise coz I am not sure where is the exact location of the noise. (I read that the fan supposed to be in left side of keyboard and harddisk is in the left side of the palm rest; please correct me if I am wrong).
The noise is like something spinning all the time in a constant speed. Is the harddisk supposed to be spinning all the time when we turned the powerrbook on?
The noise starts after booting up and I always can hear it (even in idle) until I turn the powerbook to sleep.
I usually work at night with my powerbook, so my surrounding is really quite.
Does your powerbook have this noise too? Or is it really silent (and only has some clicking noise when accessing/writing to the harddisk). I just wanna know if my powerbook behaves normally.
Thanks

Is the harddisk supposed to spin all the time (even no read/write activity)?
There is what has been called a sizzling sound that constantly emanates from this computer, and, depending on the combination of your sensitivity to it and the presence of ambient noise, is clearly audible in a silent room, but this is easy to differentiate from the fan, which is quite a bit louder. If you haven't done any processor intensive tasks, then it's possible that you have never heard this fan, which doesn't go on, I believe, until the CPU has reached a temperature of about 145F. On the other hand, the 'sizzling' sound has been a frequent topic of discussion in this forum. Over the course of the first two revisions of the PB 17, one thread on the subject grew to around 300 posts in length.
If you are dubious about the state of your HD, run the Disk Repair tool in Disk Utility while you are booted from your installation DVD to check the drive's SMART status. If you want to investigate this further, boot into the installation DVD again holding down the Option key and run the extended Apple Hardware Test. Having eliminated any applications or startup items as the cause of the problem, your last troubleshooting step might be to reinstall your OS. Before you do that, see if you can find another 1.67GHz machine to listen to so you can compare the sounds you hear from both. It may be that there is really nothing to worry about....
Good luck.
Tuttle
BTW, What became of this issue?: http://discuss.info.apple.com/webx?13@@.68b7a64a

Can anyone help? High noise margin and low sync sp...

Hi all,
just registered on the forum so this is my first post. Hopefully someone out there can help.
I transferred my broadband to BT from Sky. With Sky my sync speed was around 4000kbps and download of about 3500kbps. I had a Netgear router with Sky but for some reason every day or so my sync speed dropped to 2500kbps and download down to 1800kbps. I had to reboot the router to get the speeds back up again, very frustrating.
I got BT broadband on 20/1/2010, set everything up and also fitted an I-plate. I noticed that line attenuation was 46db, this was previously 50.5 with sky and prior to I plate. The home hub sync was at 7200kbps at the start which i was very pleased with. I know this DLM thing is active for the first 10 days or so and speedtests during this time are not exactly accurate but still I was happy. after 3 days i did a speed test and got download of 5800kbps, chuffed to bits!
But, after 2 days at that speed the sync dropped to 2176kbps, gutted. I have only rebooted the router 3 times since the service started and each time the sync goes back to 7000kbps ish but drops again a day later. The thing I dont understand is the noise margin. Its currently at 24.5db, isnt that awfully high? Why is this? when I reboot it drops to 8-9db ish but then goes up again with the speed dropping.
currently connected to test socket, no other telephone equipment connected to any extensions
Can anyone please help/advise whats going on or how to rectify it? I'm wondering if theres a line fault somewhere.
And with attenuation at 46db I would have thought the speed could well be much higher than 2200kbps.
I'll stop babbling now,
Thanks

whitesp wrote:
Thanks for your reply Somerled,
ok so something is causing noise at a particular time, i had wondered about the quality of the home wiring, there are 4 extension sockets in the property, but again i am currently only connected to the test socket.
I dont have the old netgear router unfortunately so can't follow up on the suggestion you made.
God this is gonna be a nighmare to track down, although come to think of it I do have a dimmer on quite close to where the master socket is.
Can we say for sure that there definitely IS a source of noise/interference??
Many thanks
SOMETHING is forcing a resync, and at a low speed. The only thing that would cause that is a prolonged burst of noise.This is known to BT technicians as "REIN" (Repetitive Electrical Impulsive Noise). No point trying to get BT to investigate at this stage though, as it sounds very intermittent.
The way to spot radio interference noise is to use a suitable receiver - and the most convenient is a portable medium wave transistor radio. Tune to a quiet spot at the lowest end of the scale, and turn up the volume. All you'll hear is white noise and the occasional quiet crackle. A burst of noise strong enough to affect the DSL signal will be unmistakeable - a LOUD crackling/buzzing/rasping noise. If that coincides with a resync, you've found it. You then have to figure out what electrical device caused the noise.....
Another possible source of DSL noise problems is less obvious - noise caused by a line fault. This causes an unwanted mixing of the phone and DSL signal in a way that can't be corrected by the filters. This will have much the same effect as external interference noise.
Check this : does the router resync when the phone rings, or when the phone is in use ? If it does, then we're on to something - a fault known as an "HR" (High Resistance). If that doesn't happen, then we are back to external radio interference as the cause.
I suppose the HV lines you mention might have some effect, but it's a bit of a long shot. I'd expect noise from them would be a bit more constant, and would cause problems all the time, rather than intermittently.

What kind of noise it is?

Hi,
This is my 1st post, though I am fan of Apple product and this forum. However, My PB G4 12" is almost a year old. And I am so happy with this great piece of machine. I really LOVE it. But I am a bit worried about a noise coming out of this nice machine. I am not sure about the source of the noise, which is something similar to the noise that comes out while a pingpong ball being grounded up. The duration of the noise is approx. 0.5 sec but the frequency is, say, once in a minute or two or sometimes greater than 5 min.! So far I remember, I experience this noise since the day I started using it. Is there anything to worry about it? May I request your kind help to get rid of this noise. Thank you in advance. Regards, Abid Imtiaz.
PowerBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.4.5) 1.5 GHz
PowerBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.4.5) 1.5 GHz

It sounds like your harddisc rotating, which means it's doing its job. When you give your computer commands it starts to compute. So if I'm right you have nothing to worry about. Enjoy.

Mac Performa 405 buzzing noise

Whenever I turn on my Mac Performa 405 after a while it starts to make a buzzing noise. I am almost positive that this noise is coming from the add-on Motorola 68882 FPU installed into the socket on my Asante MCiLC LC PDS network card. What can I do about this noise? It's driving me crazy & the Mac has also frozen once before briefly (it was running for hours on end though). Somehow a couple of minutes later Mac OS 7.5.5 managed to unfreeze itself. When I upgrade to Mac OS 7.6.1 will my FPU be better supported? The Mac has 12 MB of RAM though it only sees 10 MB too. Virtual Memory is also turned on since I'm trying to get Cyberdog 2.0 to run. Cyberdog 2.0 also freezes the Mac whenever I try to go to Apple's Support site too.

Craigwd_2000
It is characteristic of the Colour Classic, CC II, Performa 250, LC II, Performas 40x, and others that I wot not of from direct experience, that the lowest 2MB of 12MB installed are not addressed by the MMU. Pointless, but true. Add 2 x 2MB to the base 4MB and 8MB wil be used. Add 2 x 4MB and only the top 10MB will be used. If you feel limited by this, replace the LC II logic board with a Q 605 board and add a 32MB (or 128MB) 72-pin SIMM. My Elsie sings with the latter combination, and can run OS 8.1 with aplomb. With more RAM you wil be able to abandon Cyberdog (unless you wish to savour the agonies), and accommodate other applications with greater memory demands.
As far as the buzz goes, you can confirm the cause as electrical or mechanical (eg, the fan) by muting the speaker output, removing the FPU (if it is socketted) or the card if it is not, detaching the 4-pin power plug from the HDD or the cable from the FDD, and so on, one at a time.
You need only to elevate the rear of the case, as has been suggested, to increase ventilation enough. Given that, and the inner cleanliness that so-and-so's tonic water can produce ... you can find the source of the noise by attacking the suspects systematically. The speaker is awkwardly situated for direct listening, but you can do it with the case top off. Make sure of the security of the cables routed around the speaker, in case one or other is loose and being struck by the fan.
Apple IIe; 68K: 11DT + 4PB; PPC: 5DT + 3PB; G3: 6DT System 6.0.8 to OS 10.4.x

Advanced Dock 25031 + ATI x300 + 22" = Audio Noise

Hi there
It's a tough World to fit things in. I've had the Advanced Dock + z60M for 2 years now, of perfect working.
Lately i managed to add a 2nd hand ATI x300 Graphics PCIe card to it, and 2 22" Viewsonic Monitors.
Imediately i noticed a low frequency noise coming out of the "Line out" audio of the dock. This is never ending and very anoying.
Noise stops when i disconnect both DVI cables from the advanced dock.
Could someone shed some light on this, please ?
I'm no such expert on this. My understanding is that both monitors (which are the same model) have their power source inducing electrical noise through their attached cables (lead and DVI) hence reaching the line out through the dock.
Maybe it's possible to solve this by adding some sort of in line filter to the DVI cable. Don't really know !
This doesn't happen if i unplug the Jack from the dock and connect it directly to the laptop ! I don't see this as the solution.
Help please !
Best Regards
FJBatista

Isolation Transformer completely removed the Laptop+Dock working noises.
That equals : one happy user here !!

Noise reduction not applying to beginning of clip

There's a bug in Premiere Pro which results in the hiss reduction or certain audio effects not being applied to the first 2-3 seconds of audio when exporting.
After looking this up on the Adobe forums I found other people with the same issue, and they were advised to edit the audio in Audition and reimport into Premiere Pro. I am having the same problem in Audition however.
I capture my noise profile, apply the adaptive noise reduction (or dehiss or whatever) and the audio sounds fine in the program. But when I export the first 2-3 seconds have the original hiss and you can then hear the effect kick in.
Can anyone help?! I offered to start doing video for my work and this is driving me up the wall.

Adaptive Noise Reduction is just that - adaptive. It identifies sources of dynamic noise over time, then reduces them.
If your clips don't have a few seconds before the in-point with which to apply the algorithm, you can often just copy/paste a few seconds at the beginning of your recording, run the effect, then delete that section. Dropping a marker after you paste the selection (while it's still selected) will make it simple to select that range again for deletion.
Otherwise, you might want to try the more manual NR tools. You'll have more control over what's identified as noise and how drastically it's reduced, and can make several light passes for better results.

Shadow noise D200 NEF files

I recently did a comparison of shadow noise in Aperture (1.1.1) vs CS2 and was surprized (OS 10.4.6). The experiment:
1. Transfer NEF file (Nikon D200 maximum file size, no compression) from CF card to hard drive renaming file with Extensis Portfolio
2. In case 1, I open the NEF file from hard drive directly in CS2
3. In case 2, I import the identical NEF file into Aperture and examine it within Aperture or open it in CS2 thru the external editor function.
Case 2 has a huge amount of noise artifact particularly in the shadow regions as compared to Case 1. An example of this can be seen at www.printroom.com/pro/e2photo
in gallery "Aperture Shadow Example" although you can not see the artifact as much (If you want to see in all its glory, I will send you a small file that shows the difference--pretty amazing)
Question 1: Has anyone else seen bad shadow noise (seems like I saw something here a while ago, but could not find it)
Question 2: What is the source of the noise and can it be corrected by changing import functions or some other strategy?
Thanks
Steven

After comparing different images with another board member, AlphDoug, I think I am convinced of the following conclusion.
In areas of shadow (particularly in red areas, but perhaps others as well), the RAW filters for Nikon D200 for ACR/CS2/Nikon Capture all appear the same and Aperture is different than they are. Aperture has a "granular" appearance whereas ACR/CS2/Nikon Capture have a sort of splotchy, spotty, blotchy appearance. On brief inspection the ACR/CS2/Nikon Capture visually may be more appealing, but the Aperture may more accurately simulate noise as it might appear on film. So perhaps it is all in the eye of the beholder. I will continue to puzzle on this a bit and try some more experiments.
I should note that if I bring an image into Nikon Capture, export it as a tiff and then import the tiff into Aperture, Aperture displays the image as Nikon Capture would display it. This makes me believe the difference is in the interpretation of noise in the RAW filter and how different companies choose to represent the output.
Thanks Doug and to those that provided input.
Steven

Noise from HD also is this a slow startup???

Hi guys!
Ok so i now have my iMac 27" i7 up and running! Great bit of kit indeed!! just a few questions that i would be grateful if someone can help with please?
1. My HD makes grumble noises, now i can put up with this no problem if i know its not a fault! dont want to pay almost £2000 for faulty goods!
2. I have owned macs for a long time but mostly MBP, this one seems very slow at starting up, the apple logo does not appear for about 20-30sec then i get the spinning wheel, 10-15sec then i will hear the hard drive and it will boot up, twice for no reason it has booted into safe??
Please keep in mind guys this is brand new! not had a chance yet to install anything that may cause this.....
Thanks guys!!

Hi and welcome.....
Check for Login Items.
Open System Preferences/Accounts then select the Login Items tab. Delete any files or apps you have listed there. And go to /Library/Startup Items. Move any files in the Startup Items folder to the Trash.
If login items aren't the issue, launch Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left then select the FirstAid tab.
Click: *Verify Disk* (not Verify Disk Permissions).
If Disk Utility reports problems with the startup disk, follow these instructions to make repairs.
Insert your install disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu and launch Disk Utility.
(In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first from the installer menu)
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel. It should say: Verified)
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
When you are finished with DU, from the Menu Bar, select Utilities/Startup Manager.
Select your startup disk and click Restart
While you have the Disk Utility window open, look at the bottom of the window. Where you see Capacity and Available. Make sure there is always 15% free space.
Carolyn

High Pitch Electrical Noise

My pc has developed that high pitch electrical noise that some other people have mentioned on this forum. I have read in other posts that touching some thorroids can help to identify the source of the noise. Could someone post a picture of the Nforce4 K8n Platinum board identifying these thorroids because I have no clue where they are.
Cheers,
Dubcat.

I have noticed that the noise does not start until i hit the windows xp login screen - what could possibly be causing this? It's doing my head in :(

Recording noise problem

Hello,
I am in the process of doing a voice over for a film documentary, the problem is the background noise, I'm guessing the noise origin is from the computer. I'm using high end mic's and excellent cables, is there a solution for this or am I better off using a stand alone digital multi-track? Something tells me the software was not designed to record from a high end computer with i7 processors, they can be a little noisy from cooling fans.
Big thanks in advance for your input.

tikiglow wrote:
Something tells me the software was not designed to record from a high end computer with i7 processors, they can be a little noisy from cooling fans.
I'm not quite sure why the software would or wouldn't be designed to do this??? It's perfectly possible to house an i7 processor and the rest of the hardware for it in a box that makes virtually no sound at all - but you will have to pay quite a bit for this, admittedly. If you are thinking of doing much voice-over work though, it might be worth it.
Assuming that you can't do this immediately, then you have to live with what you've got. If you record using a microphone in any noisy environment, you will pick it up with a sensitive microphone. So really it's the environment you need to be controlling here; get the microphone away from the computer! How long are your excellent cables? Are you using them coiled up? Also, if the microphone is directional, them make sure that the dead side is facing the source of the noise.

Source of grumbling noise?

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