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Model A1502 / 2.4, 2.6, or 2.8 GHz dual-core Intel processor / Released October 2013

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Repetitive clicking noise after MacOS 10 Sierra upgrade

I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro to MacOS Sierra. After the update, my Mac started making clicking noises. It is a repetitive noise every 5 seconds or so.

Edit: Corrected to MacOS Sierra

The computer works perfectly from what I can tell. There are no software issues. After the upgrade, I restarted my computer and noticed the noise. The noise is like a clicking/tapping noise, 12 times in a portion of a second, and it repeats every 4 seconds. I have not made any other changes to my MacBook.

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Yes, sorry I meant Mac OS 10.12.

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Hello all, I recently upgraded my MBPro to El Capitan 10.11.6 and I also hear a discrete clicking noise (one click at a time) every 10 seconds or so. Seems to be coming from the dvd drive.

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When you installed update on Mac it's not making it works better, on the contrary, the update patch was a scam to make your Mac slower, it makes you think your Mac is old and time to buy a new PC. In my experience you can update to one up OS from what you bought, more than that it will cause problem. I reversed all my slow Mac computers back to the older OS version and they work flawlessly like new. For this reason, I switched from apple to samsung.

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What? This is stupid. Upgrade a Conor with a newer OS and it will get slower? Same thing happens with windows. Plain common since. @calgarts

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7 Answers

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I suspect you have some junk wedged in the fan or the fans bearings are starting to fail.

At this point I think the best thing here is to open the bottom cover and using a small paint brush carefully scrub the fan blades and a few short blasts of can'ed air to blow the dust and junk away. Don't forget to clean the vent area as well.

Did that solve your problem?

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Thanks Dan. As a matter of facts, I also recently installed a new battery and HD, and in that process I removed some dust clusters. It might be possible that some of it might actually have been wedged deeper into the system. Looking into it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Joris

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Do you mean macOS 10.12? iOS is for iPad's, iPhone's, or iPods, not MacBooks.

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Yes, I meant MacOS Sierra. Do you have any thoughts as to what might be causing it?

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Is the system working at all or are you only getting a clicking noise and nothing else?

The OS upgrade in its self would not cause this. Please go back to your question and add in more details on what you are seeing.

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Thank you for the suggestion. I have edited my original post.

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Since you just installed a new HDD I'd suspect that, although I'd need to hear it to know for sure, (unless you upgraded to an SSD which should not produce any perceivable sound at all.)

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Thanks Tim. It's a HD, no SSD, but the sounds did seem to come from the DVDdrive area... So that's why I wondered if the ElCapitan upgrade made the DVDdrive do some funny passengerless driving.

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Does this MacBook Pro have a HDD (spinning hard drive) or a SSD (solid state)? Thanks.

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This MacBook Pro has a SSD drive (all of the retina series do)

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Omg this is what to do if you have like a table fan or something take your laptop and hold your computer in front of the fan and it will blow the dust but first use a q-tip to clean the vent area

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My MBpro Oct-2014 has an SSD and I noticed the same issue, especially when a computation starts on matlab or when I start a movie... but it does it also when still and idle (less often).

The sound is exactly the click that you hear due to the “hard disk initializing “ (classic sound I heard on my old laptop when turning on, a couple of clicks before the speed goes up) but obviously it can’t be that: apart from the fan, everything here is solid state without moving parts.

I have two guesses: thermal expansion due to the processor instantaneously warming up (and my sensor having some delay? I monitored it without noticing anything strange) or wrong pwm signal to the fan, that glitches sometimes and stops it in micro-periods.

The second hypothesis looks more real, but I don’t know why I started noticing it since Sierra.

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hi all ,my solution to the click issue (not solved completely) is to run first aid on my Main SSD (eg with the OS on it )then turn off and on again,this will stop the clicking from usb sound output for about a week of being on all day,this is on a mac mini i5, first aid on the other Normal HD dosent stop the clicks .

I fitted a Main SSD on my previous mac mini duo core and had exactly the same issue.

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