Power Mac fans

1. Peter Ceresole - 4 October 2007

   Just checking; my son in law is thinking seriously about a Mac Pro OR an iMac with a second monitor- for serious graphics work.

   What's the situation on the Mac Pro fans? I know noise used to be a real problem but I thought that had all been sorted out now. Has it?

   Peter

2. Elliott Roper - 4 October 2007

   I have a Pro with the X1900 graphics card (with its own fan) In normal operation the fans are easily audible in a quiet room, but not annoyingly so. When the fans kick in on this PBoko, they are a bit louder than the Pro is at idle. When caning the graphics in Aperture or Final Cut Pro or sometimes even iTunes, the X1900's fan kicks in more loudly, usually for very brief periods. It is quite hard to get the Pro's main fans on full. I usually get a couple of seconds of that at restart time. That is LOUD, but not as loud as G5 quad in full cry. I have had all four cores maxed out for long periods without bringing the fans on high, but it does get louder than at idle.

   To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$
   PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248

3. Jon B - 4 October 2007

   No noise issues here with G5 or Mac Pro at least.

   Jon B
   Above email address IS valid.
   <http://www.bramley-computers.co.uk/> Apple Laptop Repairs.

4. Peter Ceresole - 4 October 2007

   Jon B wrote:

   No noise issues here with G5 or Mac Pro at least.

   Thanks, Jon and Elliott, I'll pass on the reassuring words. --
   Peter

5. Paul Womar - 4 October 2007

   My Mac Pro is easily the quiestest desktop I've owned.

   -> The email address used in this message *IS* valid <-

6. J. J. Lodder - 4 October 2007

   Noise has never been an issue with the G5 or Intel towers. It were the last generation 'windtunnel' G4-s
   that were excessively noisy,

   Jan

7. Gwynne Harper - 4 October 2007

   Peter Ceresole wrote:

   What's the situation on the Mac Pro fans?

   Was it just me that was expecting "power mac, power mac, go go go!" from the subject line?

   I find mine noisy in comparison to the Digital Audio it replaced, but it is on the desk right next to my left ear and iTunes provides ample distraction.

   Gwynne

   My real email is net, not line.

   --

8. Richard Tobin - 4 October 2007

   I have a four-core Mac Pro on my desk and I never notice any noise from it except an occasional quiet rattle of the disk. I don't have any fancy graphics options. A few feet away is an 8-core Mac Pro (running Linux) which is used as a compute server. When it's under heavy load the fans are sufficiently loud that I wouldn't want it on my desk.

   -- Richard

   "Consideration shall be given to the need for as many as 32 characters in some alphabets" - X3.4, 1963.

9. Peter Ceresole - 4 October 2007

   Gwynne Harper wrote:

   Was it just me that was expecting "power mac, power mac, go go go!" from the subject line?

   Yup well... The subject line was a mistake. All mine.

   Peter

10. James Dore - 4 October 2007

    I /think/ my Mac Pro is quieter than my Quad G5, although the MP is in an office with aircon, dozens of other machines and three other people, while the PMG5 is at home in a very quiet study. I've never heard the Pro's fans, even when running multiple VMware VM's, photoshop, and a zillion Opera windows.

    The only time I hear the PMG5's fans are when importing into iTunes, or Aperture is doing something heavy, and they're not intrusive even in the hush of baby sleep time :->

    Cheers,

    james dore
    IT Officer,
    New College, Oxford
    http://www.new.ox.ac.uk/ it-support@new....

11. J.J. O'Shea - 5 October 2007

    If the fans in the Mac Pro are running loud enough to be a problem, there's usually something wrong. Under normal conditions the fans do not run loud enough to affect most users. The fans in my external drives are louder than the fans in my iMac, except when the iMac is in Helicopter Mode and the fans are doing their best to achieve takeoff.

    Note that sometimes the fans in both the Mac Pro and the iMac do run at full tilt on startup, and can give a very good imitation of a very large helicopter trying to lift off. Usually this stops in a few seconds. If it doesn't stop by itself, rebooting will usually cure it. If not, then there's almost always a problem which has caused the fans to run.

    email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

12. ric - 5 October 2007

    On Oct 4, 9:41 pm, Richard Tobin wrote:

    A few feet away is an 8-core Mac Pro
    (running Linux) which is used as a compute server. When it's under heavy load the fans are sufficiently loud that I wouldn't want it on my desk.

    Is it fair to say that the fans are probably running at full tilt all the time as the Linux install doesn't do fan management and so isn't throttling them down at all?
    Ric

13. J.J. O'Shea - 5 October 2007

    That'd be my guess.

    email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

14. Gwynne Harper - 5 October 2007

    Frankly I'd rather read your mistakes vice most people's posts...

    Gwynne

    My real email is net, not line.

    --

15. Richard Tobin - 6 October 2007

    No. The fans are quiet when no-one is using it amd under moderate load. And they aren't running at full tilt by any means even when the system is heavily loaded - that would be intolerable.

    As far as I can see, Linux controls the fans just as well as MacOS (if it is indeed the OS that controls it on these Macs). You have to expect 8 cores to produce a fair bit of heat when they're all busy.

    -- Richard

    "Consideration shall be given to the need for as many as 32 characters in some alphabets" - X3.4, 1963.