Stranges Noises At Night

[robemich]

When sleeping, my Mac Pro makes funny noises. I have not had a chance to time the spacing in between the noises, but if I had to guess they occur during regular intervals.

It is really hard to describe the noises, so I will do my best. It almost sounds like when you hit the power button and the machine begins to power up. You hear a click, followed by what sounds like hard drive spin-up, then the sound fades out. I only notice these noises when the machine is sleeping and my house if very quite. I am really curious to know if this is normal.

Sorry for the n00b question, I am a new convert.

-mike

 

[synth3tik]

Most likely there is an application or script that is accessing the hard drive, Say a back up program or something. Usually mine is pretty good, but every so often it will wake up from sleep when a program is accessing the hard drive or other recourses.

 

[robemich]

Thanks

This is good information to know. Thanks for the quick reply.

-mike

 

[anthony113]

osx runs cron jobs when the computer isnt being used, typically at night. these are basically maintenance functions that help things stay speedy. you can run them manually if you choose using a 3rd party tuning application, but the system tends to keep after itself.

 

[CubeHacker]

Its quite possible that your hard drive is constantly spinning up and down, which can be damaging. Check the energy saver panel under preferences, and uncheck the "spin down hard disk" option. See if that makes the odd noises go away.

 

[robemich]

Many Thanks

Thanks to everyone that replied. I am going to search through logs and try to correlate the noise to something in the logs based on the time that it occurs. Hopefully that might point me to a specific task that is running, and hopefully a task that I can disable. I will let you all know my results.

-mike

 

[crjeong]

Thanks to everyone that replied. I am going to search through logs and try to correlate the noise to something in the logs based on the time that it occurs. Hopefully that might point me to a specific task that is running, and hopefully a task that I can disable. I will let you all know my results.

-mike

I've been getting the same problems with my Mac Pro also. Have you figured out what the cause is yet?

I thought it might have had something to so with some software I might have installed, because I cant recall this happening when I first got the computer. Perhaps DejaVu?

 

[CanadaRAM]

I've been getting the same problems with my Mac Pro also. Have you figured out what the cause is yet?

I thought it might have had something to so with some software I might have installed, because I cant recall this happening when I first got the computer.

I don't think it is a problem. OSX automatic maintenance, Spotlight indexing, etc. possibly.

 

[crjeong]

I don't think it is a problem. OSX automatic maintenance, Spotlight indexing, etc. possibly.

Does this occur on your computer also??

 

[TheNightPhoenix]

This happens with my iMac. Its increadably annoying.
I checked and the hard disks are set NOT to go to sleep, but at every 5 minutes or so it spins up for a few minutes before spinning down again.

I ended up settings itunes to play music with the speakers on mute to stop it.

 

[robemich]

This is getting interesting

Like you all have suggested, I went into my energy saver settings, and unchecked the box for spin down (put them to sleep) hard drive(s) when possible. The noise still occurs. As far as I can tell, the drives are still spinning down when the machine sleeps, despite unchecking the box. I have not been able to pin-point the spin up to a certain task or OS maintenance item, and I am not really worried about finding out what the cause is. I just want the drives to spin constantly.

I am fearful that the process of spinning up and down the drives every couple minutes is going to have some long term effect on the life expectancy.

Should I open a case with Apple?

-mike

 

[slughead]

probably the x1900xt

mine spins up occasionally at night

 

[synth3tik]

Your computer is performing routine maintenance. This is way its a good idea to leave the computer on. when its not in use it will go through doing file indexing, and the what like. Its kind of like it is going through it's own self calibration.

 

[robemich]

I will leave well enough alone then. I understand the routine OS level maintenance. I was just concerned about my drives. Thanks to everyone that replied.

-mike

 

[synth3tik]

I know what you mean, The first time I noticed it I was alarmed almost as much as when I noticed my QS "breathing" during sleep mode.

 

[SRSound]

i think there's really only one explanation - your computer is haunted