Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / March 2005

Hi. In January I finally moved my 600MHz 14" dual USB iBook from OS
9.2.2 to OS 10.2.8. I find that now I tend to leave my iBook turned on
for longer periods, sometimes for a day ormore. I opt for logging
myself out instead of powering down.

A previously unnoticed hardware behavior is occurring. Whereas the
iBook had been nearly silent for most of its two years, now I'm getting
a noisy vibration. Neither the noise nor the vibration is excessive,
but they are new. They occur exactly together and with a fixed cycle:
off for 8 seconds, on for 22. The onset occurs after the iBook has been
powered up for several hours.

By feeling the case I conclude that the vibration is centered inside
the front lefthand corner as I face the open iBook. I don't know what's
located there, but it's generating enough heat to be marginally
uncomfortable to the touch on the underside of the case.

It occurs to me that I might be hearing the running of the fan. Perhaps
until the longer power-on durations the heat build-up wasn't sufficient
to trigger it?  Perhaps OS X uses a different standard for managing the
fan?

OTOH, noise and vibration can be harbingers of problems with the HD. Is
that where it's located?

If I weren't working in a quiet room I likely wouldn't have noticed the
noise. I can live with this. My question is whether my iBook can.

Tufty