Trying to do stuff on my laptop this morning after morning chores and while the muffins are in the oven, but the ‘pooter is starting to worry me. I keep getting intervals of white noise and silence, cutting on and off abruptly. To my tinnitus-plagued ears it kind of sounds like a cooling fan or maybe a hard drive* being cycled for no apparent reason.
I do not want to hear this: Is my beautiful trouble-free ‘pooter, less than five years old, going south on me? Did I pick up damaging malware from a, er, righteous Republican news site? Am I doomed to figure out how to use the Plan B tablet again while I scrounge for a repair or replacement? Woe! Despair!
It’s been a while since I rebooted, and things go south if you don’t shut down once in a while. I try a warm reboot: No change. I try a cold reboot: No change.
I sit back and prepare my mind for some heavy-duty worrying. The white noise sound keeps cycling: Thirty seconds on, maybe half a second off. Over and over. Very regular. I even time it: It’s exactly 30 seconds. That’s … weird.
I look over at Tobie: He’s no help at all. I look back at the desk, and notice that the little LED indicator on the DVD player is flashing merrily away. Why is it even on?
I never put away the DVD I was watching last night. I open the window for the DVD: Menu is displayed. Controls: Eject DVD. The player pops open and the noise abruptly stops.
I push the player closed again and wait interminably for the DVD to start playing. The noise starts: Thirty seconds on, half second off.
The noise is coming from the speakers, not the laptop. Because I’m an idiot. Og such a boomer: Og go out and kill something now.
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*Rather old-fashioned, I admit: I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the Macbook’s internal drive make a sound but what the hell: I was grasping for an explanation.
Og not only one. Grog do similar but not kill something cuz work kittycat too cute.
Og and Grog both have company… I had a desktop at work that kept making “worrying” sounds but it turned out to be dumb me who left a disk running. Oops. I didn’t go out and kill anything but did walk around the block in the fresh air to mitigate the frustration factor!
Well that was a cheap, easy fix. Luckeeee, in my best Dynamite Napoleon.
I don’t know if it will help but my laptop was having intermittent “Nah bro, ain’t starting”. Cycle, stop, no screen, stupid whirring noise. Turns out on the underside is a little hole. It seems when the acer is moved about, it may pick up a static charge which inhibits the battery. Just on the outside this might be affecting you, cruise on over here to see if the MacBook has a similar issue: https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/acer-e15-reset.430006/
I’m running basically the same machine. You should have a Solid State hard drive, so no noise since there are no moving parts, just memory chips. The cooling fans can get pretty loud if the machine is hot but you can feel the air blowing.since it sounds like the problem is coming from the external drive, the first thing I’d try is replacing the cable, one of the ends may be getting worn and loose.