24" iMac buzzing

[TangoJuliet]

I got my iMac a couple weeks ago and just realized it makes this buzzing noise. I didnt notice it before because I generally had music playing but the past couple nights I've been doing work in silence and heard the noise which is annoying to say the least.

I did purchase an apple care plan with it so I'm sure I'll be covered. If it has to be replaced then can they save all the work I have done in iPhoto and iTunes, etc?

 

[Tyranicus]

No. They'll just give you a new one, so I would recommend making a backup. As to the buzzing, it may be the backlight inverter. My MacBook Pro occasionally gets that problem as well. If I turn the brightness up to the max, it goes away.

 

[TheStu]

I would recommend cloning your drive to an external before taking it into Apple. It is not unheard of for Apple to wipe your entire drive and reinstall OS X when you take systems in for service.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: TheStu
I would recommend cloning your drive to an external before taking it into Apple. It is not unheard of for Apple to wipe your entire drive and reinstall OS X when you take systems in for service.

How should I go about cloning the drive? I mean its not a lot of stuff on here as everything is still on my external drive. I just made some things in iPhoto that I would like to save as well as my emails. Is there a way to export the albums in iPhoto and export the emails in mac mail?

 

[TheStu]

Yes and Yes to the exporting, from Mail you can go to Mailbox, Archive and that should work for you (though I would test it first). And if you have all your photos in iPhoto, then simply copy your pictures folder, especially the iPhoto Library off to your external.

For cloning, use Carbon Copy CLoner to clone your OS X partition off to a partition on your external. You can use Disk Utility in Leopard to dynamically partition the external as well.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Well, I tried everything to get rid of the buzzing noise - lowered the brightness, bought a UPS and switched to a different outlet and I could not get it to go away. I contacted apple and they are going to give me a full refund. By doing so I am buying the computer through the education store rather then the developer store so that I can get in on the free ipod touch. That still leaves me with a one time developer hardware discount - I wonder what I should use it on.

On a side note I am really getting used to the mighty mouse. How does the wireless version stack up to the wired one? I am sticking with the wired keyboard because I like the full keypad which the wireless one does not have.