Fans/Fan noise

[nick danger]

My 3+ year-old G5 iMac used to run almost completely silently. If the fans ever ran much, they must have done so quite silently. The only times I ever used to hear them at all was upon restart after installing new software, and that was only for a few minutes.

Relatively recently, the fan noise has increased dramatically. Could the computer be running hotter now for some reason or another, or perhaps the fans just don't run as quietly as they used to? I did have the optical drive replaced a while back, so maybe it has a different fan that is noisier than the old one.

If anybody has any ideas of how to quiet it down, thanks in advance.

[Tripi]

I just replaced a three year old G5 with noisy fans. I took it to a mac repair shop, and they discovered that one of the processors (it was one of the four) had failed. They told me that excedingly loud fans are a good sign of a failed processor. Since my G5 had four processors, it still worked well..... but it was very loud. Something to think about before you go and stuff it in an isobox.

[nick danger]

Mine only has one processor, so I hope it's not a sign that it's going out.

[cuttime]

I'd check for dust buildup and give everything a good vacuum, clearing all vents with a small, clean paintbrush.

[nick danger]

Thanks, I was considering that-- I'll definitely give it a try.

[timriley]

Does it happen all the time or only in certain situations?

I've noticed the fans switching on more often since I upgraded to DP6..

Also, web browsers use up ALOT more processor power than they used to, with all the flashy graphics you get these days on some sites...

[nick danger]

It runs pretty much full time now. If I had to peg it to any major software change, I'd stay it was upgrading to OS 10.5. I wonder if it's imbedded in the OS to kick on the fans at a lower temperature.

I vacuumed it out through vents in the case, with no noticeable change. I'm wondering if I need to open it up and give things a more through dusting off.

[timriley]

Yes, well I upgraded to OS 10.5 at the same time as upgrading to DP6..

With mine, it doesn't run all the time but I do notice it coming on much more often than it used to with the OS 10.4 and DP5 combo.

[nick danger]

I think I've isolated it to Safari (4.0) It seems almost random, but eventually, CPU activity spikes, as does CPU temp, and that's when the fan kicks in. If I shut down Safari, the CPU spike ends almost immediately, the CPU temp drops, and soon thereafter, the fan slows down considerably.

I reopened all windows to post this, and so far, no spike in CPU activity or temp, and fan is at an acceptable level.

Curious.

[timriley]

Yep.. I get this from Safari 3 also. Some sites are fine, like this one (motunation) where the processor runs at under 10%. Others that use loads of hi-tech graphics, like the motu homepage for instance, send the computer into overdrive.

[James Steele]

Yep.. I get this from Safari 3 also. Some sites are fine, like this one (motunation) where the processor runs at under 10%. Others that use loads of hi-tech graphics, like the motu homepage for instance, send the computer into overdrive.

It's one of the reasons I favor spartan graphics etc. Granted I still need to spruce things up, but the no-nonsense approach has merit. Biggest example in my mind is Craiglist. It's enormously popular and they've never felt the need to bloat their site with java and flash, etc. It makes it a joy to use.

[timriley]

The thing is, although my computer isn't the most powerful in the world, it's certainly not the least... So if I'm having trouble then lots of people must be also... Doesn't seem like good business sense to me, as I'm personally less likely to visit sites that are potentially going to do some harm to my computer.. No matter how 'amazing' they look!

Having said that, I'm doing a pretty good job of ruining my computer all by myself (managed to damage my screen yesterday )

[twistedtom]

Just some questions;
Have you used some thing like Mac Janitor?
Did you repair permissions?
Zap your pram.
Rebuild preferences?

[nick danger]

I'm still having fan noise issues. But I've isolated it to a couple of different causes, both related to Safari (4.latest beta experiment)

One cause is streaming video, either flash player or youtube-- not sure about other formats.

The other is the website for my small-city media conglomerate (they own the only newspaper in town, and the only cable company.) An (not all) open webpage of theirs can cause my CPU (and fans) to work at 50% or more, even though it appears that not much is going on.

Thankfully, so far it doesn't happen when I'm running DP 6.02, which I usually run concurrently with motu cuemix and minimal plugins only.

Anybody else having this experience? I'm using a G5 iMac, 2.1 Ghz, 2.5 gig ram.