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Rev. 2 iMacs and Fan Noise


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Rev. 2 iMacs and Fan Noise
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switchah
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Join Date: Apr 2005
 
2005-05-10, 13:18

OK we've heard tons of horror stories about whining, noisy iMac G5's to the point that it is not just "a few bad apples", but a widespread design/tolerance/manufacturing fault in the computer.

Those of you with experience in this area: Are the Rev B's quieter? Less prone to noise/midplane woes? Or is it too early to tell?

This is a huge factor for me as I can live without the speed of a Rev B but I absolutely cannot deal with a noisy computer.
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thegelding
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2005-05-11, 00:37

will let you know when mine comes in 3-5 days

g
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IonYz
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2005-05-11, 01:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by switchah
This is a huge factor for me as I can live without the speed of a Rev B but I absolutely cannot deal with a noisy computer.
I know what you mean. And I was only looking at a Mac mini until Luca pointed out the "ugly-duckling" Power Mac 1.8 GHz is passively cooled (CPU).

Keep everyone posted G.

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jkloos
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Join Date: Mar 2005
 
2005-05-11, 04:28

dude are you serious. it's not like the imacs go nutz from the minute the power is on till they are shut down. very rarely when your using 100% of the processor they can make some noise. nothing on the level your talking about though.
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switchah
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Join Date: Apr 2005
 
2005-05-11, 12:01

Ummmmm

Yes I am serious. Look at the iMac discussion threads on Apple's website. They are inundated with people fed up with the noise on their iMac G5s. And I am not talking about the "normal" fan noise which I agree is quite tolerable- I am talking about the sustained high pitched whines audible from the next room that occur when the fans/midplane/whatever goes south.
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bassplayinMacFiend
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Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2005-05-11, 13:45

Quote:
Originally Posted by jkloos
dude are you serious. it's not like the imacs go nutz from the minute the power is on till they are shut down. very rarely when your using 100% of the processor they can make some noise. nothing on the level your talking about though.
My fans are on quite often and I'm not pegging the CPU on a regular basis either. It's not as annoying as it was when I first got it, but it certainly isn't whisper quiet by any stretch of the imagination.
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Mr Beardsley
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2005-05-11, 14:00

I have a 1.8 17", and I can say the fan noise is kind of annoying. If you put the processor setting on reduced or automatic, and you are only doing light web surfing, the machine is very quiet. Put the processor performance on highest, open multiple tabs, and you'll hear the fan really well. In my brief time messing with it, I think there's a fan for the processror, and that is the loud one. The other fans for the hard drive and general system are quiet.

"Slow vehicle speeds with frequent stops would signal traffic congestion, for instance."

uh... it could also signal that my Mom is at the wheel...
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thegelding
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2005-05-11, 15:17

more reason to take the power source out of the chin and put in more heat sink or low velocity/low noise fans....

still have my fanless iMac g3 400 mhz running after what 5, probably 6 years now

maybe the iMac can't go fanless again (the g3 was a very cool chip and the iMac DV had a lot more area to cool air in than the mac mini or iMac currently), but apple can still work on the body and innards (the next G5 chips may be cooler also)

g

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yoharryo
 
 
2005-05-11, 16:12

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Beardsley
I have a 1.8 17", and I can say the fan noise is kind of annoying. If you put the processor setting on reduced or automatic, and you are only doing light web surfing, the machine is very quiet. Put the processor performance on highest, open multiple tabs, and you'll hear the fan really well. In my brief time messing with it, I think there's a fan for the processror, and that is the loud one. The other fans for the hard drive and general system are quiet.
got the same computer, and came back from repair at apple, and fan has been crazy ever since..really loud, but not sure whether or not is normal.
Not to bad but in quiet room it is definately audible, much more then any sound was on my g3 iMac.....
bu then again..my computer is most fucked
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thegelding
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2005-05-11, 16:21

the g3 iMac had no, none, zero fans...so no fan noise...

but the hard drive was noisey

i just play my itunes as i work.surf, play...so i never hear the computer parts


g


new iMac ship date of 5/18/05...so likely about 10 days before i play...mmmmmG5 and 400 gig HD

heaven

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IonYz
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2005-05-11, 20:36

Quote:
Originally Posted by thegelding
mmmmmG5 and 400 gig HD
Wow, thats a lot of po...wer. Power. Yes.

The G4, to a lesser extent, is cool running too (compared to the G3). In the Mac mini it uses a 40mm fan parallel to the logic board. If it weren't for such a small area they could passively cool it. GigaDesigns sells 1.3 GHz passively cooled G4s for the Cube.

What always worried me about the G5 was just how much cooling it needs. Hear lots of people doing long lists of trail and error just to keep the fans from kicking up. The iMac G5 noise may stem from a high-pitch hard drive, maybe the seagate thermo-calibrated a ton and that sets it off. The Power supply should be outside the iMac though, that would help cool things down.

The low-end Power Mac interests me though. Without a CPU fan (Luca being correct...), using a enormous heatsink, your left with only a few others who need not kick up nearly as bad. They didn't baffle the intake so lots of sound will leak out the front, but its a rosier outlook.

Always wondered how long it would take Apple to passively cool a G5. Net round guys, perhaps designing a chip around an enterprise server processor won't be so high on the priority list.

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rasmits
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Seattle
 
2005-05-11, 21:39

My iMac Rev. A was really noisy. They replaced the Mid Plane but all it was only the PSU. I imagine all of the iMacs are shipping with better PSUs.

By the way, I got my iMac the first month they were shipping, and it's that group that had all the problems. They've been fixed for quite some time now...
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fragmore
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Join Date: Aug 2006
 
2006-09-18, 12:51

SilenX fans, virtually no noise.
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Dorian Gray
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Join Date: May 2005
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2006-09-18, 14:50

Quote:
Originally Posted by fragmore
SilenX fans, virtually no noise.
But tons of light pollution! Good grief.
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