The Navel of Narcissus

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I had to return my brand-new Mac Book Pro for replacement due to a DOA superdrive. I had put a DVD into the drive only to find that the system did not see the drive and there was no way to remove the disc. I chose to have the unit replaced rather than repaired. This is a status update.

Apple had predicted I would receive the new unit on March 31st. In fact, I had it in hand this Tuesday, March 21st. I enjoyed using FedEx.com to watch it move from Shanghai, to Anchorage, to Indianapolis, and then to Massachusetts. The new unit is fine. The superdrive was the first thing I tried and I was blown away by the quality of the screen while watching the opening scenes of The Fifth Element.

The odd little plinking noise is still there in the background so I guess this is just a fact of life for Mac Book users. Or perhaps only users with the 7200 RPM drive option. As I reported earlier, the thinking is that the disk drive's read head parking itself occasionally is causing this sound. I think it is slightly quieter on this unit than on the last one--and the plink on the last one was already pretty quiet.

No notification yet from Netflix that they've received the DVD that was stuck in the drive. When I returned the laptop to Apple, I also included the Netflix return mailer and a note asking the Apple engineers to drop the DVD in the mail after watching the movie. I'm still hopeful that someone will open the unit and find the mailer and the note, though I occasionally have visions of the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark...a large warehouse stacked to the ceiling with unopened FedEx boxes.

Comments:

It's the CPU that is noisy http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/22/macbook-pro-inconsistent-backlight-hissing-lcd/

Posted by karl on March 23, 2006 at 05:15 PM EST #

Call up Apple or e-mail, they're fantastic about customer support.

Posted by anonymous on March 23, 2006 at 05:25 PM EST #

No, this sounds like a different problem. What I hear is not a hissing noise, but an occasional and very well-defined plinking noise. Someone described it very well as the sound of a water droplet hitting a thin metal plate.

Posted by Josh Simons on March 23, 2006 at 05:26 PM EST #

I bought my MacBook Pro last Saturday, spent the evening and the next day setting it up only to find out that the iSight was not working. The next day I returned it to the Apple Store on Regent Street in London. Customer service was top-notch. The duty manager asked me whether I wanted a repair, refund or exchange. I opted for the latter. After they transferred across all my data and brought the laptop back to me, I noticed that they had not put in the additional RAM that I purchased. In addition, the new laptop they offered as replacement had a scratch mark. So, it went back to the workshop. Within five minutes, I got another replacement. This one has been working great. There is a wheezing sound in the background that appears to be caused only when both cores are active. I heard it right from the beginning, but now I seem to have gotten used to it so that it does not bother me as much. There is also that "plink" sound, but I figured it was the hard drive head parking itself as it appears to happen only when I'm moving the laptop. Otherwise, I don't hear any peculiar noise when the laptop sits on a desk. Maybe, it is specific to 7200-rpm drives. I have to admit I panicked after having the problem with iSight, but the way Apple customer service responded was amazing. This is my second Apple computer, I will certainly not hesitate to buy a third after receiving such quality service.

Posted by Eddy Young on March 24, 2006 at 04:20 PM EST #

I recently replaced the hard drive in my old iBook and now I get the plinking noise. I believe you're right about the head's parking. Everything seems to work just fine, though it is a bit strange.

Posted by Christopher C. Aycock on March 26, 2006 at 05:32 AM EST #

My MBP started to make the same noise like if the disk is shutting off, ive went to the genius bar at the apple store where I bought my MBP and the tecnicien told me to turn off and option my energy saver preference , this option is (Put hard drive to sleep when Possible) .... when its an automatic option ( like best performance ) , this option will always be on. I didn't take the time to check if the sound is still there but give me news, I said to apple that is strange because it never did this sound berfore but maybye I juste never took attention because I only heard it in silence SO , give me news !!

Posted by jonathan on October 18, 2007 at 12:07 PM EDT #

The superdrive on my 2.2 C2D MBP does the same thing. Randomly parks the heads, usually when waking or going to sleep. This is my 3rd replacement MBP(#1 - Faulty logic board, #2 - Faulty Airport #3 - Faulty superdrive which I got replaced rather than wait for a new one to ship again!!!) There are also new issues with Safari authenticating anything in my bookmarks tab, prefering to crash instead and as for trying to open hotmail from safari. Really dissapointed since I was happy with XP on my old machine, just needed an upgrade and did not fancy vista's woes. Customer support do not acknowledge a problem with anything a update has not already been issued for either, really dodgy business. Good thing the MBP looks so sexy, although I am a fan of the black macbook now, if anything goes wrong again with this that is the replacement I will ask for.

Posted by Luke Shearing on January 20, 2008 at 01:53 AM EST #