Noisy Macbook - my macbook makes noise

I have been with my lovely macbook for 3 years. But, I feel so bad when my macbook started becoming so noisy since third years. I think there is any problem with the fan. is there anyone who have the same problem with me? how should I do? is it possible to change the fan? is it will solve the problem? thank you before. best regard, stunecity

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There are two mobile parts in your computer : fans and disks.
If you loose a fan, no problem, you change the fan and your computer works nicely again.
If your disk dies, you no problem, you change the disk, but you have to re-install and you have lost all your data.
So, the urgent thing to do is making a backup of all your personal data (texts, spreadsheets, photos) on an external disk.
Then, if course, yes, for a hardware guy it's easy to change a fan provided that you have the spare parts and the know-how.
So, simply go to an apple shop and ask them to have a look at your macbook and tell you if the noise is coming from the fan or from the disk, an tell you how much money you will have to pay and how long they will have to wait for the spare parts and how long you will have to stay without a computer.

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Dear Yordan,

I appreciate your advice. I don't have any warranty for my macbook anymore.
I'm not sure the reparation will be cheap. Importantly, can it solve the noise problem?
I heard from someone that even you have changed your fan it doesn't work.
so maybe if anyone ever have the same problem 'noisy 3-years-old macbook' please share here.
I'm in japan. As you know maybe, everything is expensive here. especially reparations for any kind.
so I need recommendation from anyone before I go to shop for repairing.

Thanks,

 

 

 

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I will try to help you as much as I can. It is nice thing to troubleshoot the problems ourselves before giving it to servicing. First you need to find, whether fan itself is the source causing this noise. Ok, so to find if the fans are rotating at their normal speeds, download a free program called smcFanControl from here: http://www.conscius.de/~eidac/index.html. And this article may help you with using the program. If the results show very less RPM then definitely the problem is with the fans.

To check the health of the harddrive check out this artice: http://www.ehow.com/how_2091894_check-macs-smart-status.html. If your HDD is showing signs of dying then definitely you would need to replace the hardrive with a new one.

Your disk might be fragmented. This can give noise while reading data, especially in older HDD's. Try defragmenting the HDD, it may help the old HDD. It can reduce the continuos seeking of data from many different parts of the HDD. Once it is defragmented all the system files are arranged such that there is no need of unnecessary back and forth movement for seeking data. This webpage may help for getting further information.

Do reply on the results of the trouble shoot you did.

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I would have to tell you that Apple Macbooks sold before January 2009 and they were all coupled with the Intel GMA chips which unfortunately overheats really easily. Just by watching a simple YouTube video on my old polycarbonate Macbook with the Intel GMA 950, my Macbook sounds like a freakin' jet engine. Now that I got a free Macbook replacement from Apple to the "used-to-be-the-latest" aluminium unibody Macbook with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, the problem no longer exist and my Macbook has been quiet ever since.

xboxrulz

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i don't have macbook.. but i do have some problem with noisy laptop. Does anyone know wether this issue also occurs in pc netbook? i mean other winblows based laptop. my laptop also noisy, especially if i play some movie files.. i hope this isn't because it's using intel GMA chip >_<

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Then you could imagine having the laptop common cooling problem.
Have a look at how you use your laptop (for instance on a table) and look how the fans collect fresh ear.
I (temporarily) solved my problem once, by heaving the laptop at 20 centimeters off the table (two sets of dictionnaries were used for that). Of course this is not a solution but it's a way of diagnosis for bad cooling air circulation.

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i don't have problem with the cooling system (or i do have but it's not my concern now).. the problem is, when i'm doing game, image manipulation, etc, which connected to "graphical things", i hear my computer becomes more noisy, like buzz sound.. should i worry?

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that's exactly what I was mentionning. when you start doing cpu-intensive things, or graphic-intensive things, your cpu and/or your graphic card produces more heat, and needs more cooling, and the fan starts trying to give more fresh air. This sounds more "vrrrr" than "buzzz", but each ear has a different perception of this fan acceleration, or this bad pass-through air entrancy.

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ah, i got it now.. hm, i'll try your trick after i got home today yordan..
i love my notebook, except it alwasy noisy, like 'vrrr' as you said, and sometimes it produces a sound like an "electric sound", you know, like the sound of small spark

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