Mac Plus Making Ticking Noise

[Scott Baret]

I'm currently using my Plus and there seems to be a ticking noise coming from inside of it. I've never heard a Mac make a noise like this.

There's no other problems--the comp is cool since I just turned it on, the screen looks fine, nothing is acting up.

Any idea what this is?

 

[chris]

Time bomb?

 

[Scott Baret]

Haha, that was my first thought...

Would have had to be a sneaky crook who did it though...would have had to not only get into my house but also into the Mac, and I always have my long shafted T15 in my car since I carry all my tech tools with me all the time...

 

[Mac128]

Does it stop when you insert a disk? If so, it's your drive and according to Larry Pina, there's nothing you can do about it, but it's not harmful. Also, it's particular to MFD-51W-03 with the red label.

 

[Scott Baret]

I'll have to try that...I didn't notice it until last night when I was reinstalling Claris Resolve (though I put disks in both the internal and external drives).

 

[MacMan]

Mine does this too. I've never been able to get to the bottom of it but I know that it only does it when the SCSI bus is active. If I boot from a floppy and am not using anything on the SCSI bus, it won't make the noise. Booting from an external HD it will make a constant little "popping" noise from the speaker.

 

[Scott Baret]

That could be the culprit...I have an active SCSI bus with an external hard drive and a CD-ROM.

I probably didn't notice this before because:

1. My hearing is steadily going.

2. I usually listen to music while I compute.

3. I often have my space heater on, plus I live in a basement so there are a lot of heaters/fans/pipes making noises at any given time.

I'll try a floppy-only boot when I get home.

 

[Kallikak]

Does it go away when you insert a floppy? Larry Pina says this can be because of a particular model of 800K floppy drive and is insignificant. He also mentions a "time-bomb"...

 

[MarkS]

I have a non-functioning Mac Plus that I'm going to start working on. I have that same tick tick tick, but its coming from the power supply. I'm guessing a bad cap or two.

 

[Mac128]

Does it go away when you insert a floppy? Larry Pina says this can be because of a particular model of 800K floppy drive and is insignificant. He also mentions a "time-bomb"...

Hmmm ... now where did I read this before? (hint look earlier in this post ;-)

As for the ticking in the power supply, oh yeah baby! Tkae a look at Tom Lee's MacPlus paper online as well as the Pina book if you have it ... if not get it!