Whew, got rid of that noise

[Dan Worley]

For those who are computer maintenance challenged, lazy, or procrastinators like me:

I started noticing fan noise and revving from my MacPro, which usually sits here quiet as can be. It's possibly the quietest computer I've ever had. Anyway, I thought I'd clean it out (there's a lot of dust up here on the mountain, plus the Mac is on the floor which causes it to take in even more dust), and sure enough the video card's intake was all plugged up. I cleaned it out and all is quiet again. I now have google calendar remind me to clean this thing out every month.

c-ya,

Dan Worley

[newrigel]

My Nehalem is so fricken easy to clean... just pull out the main board and go! Most of the noise is that video card though for sure!

[Dan Worley]

My Nehalem is so fricken easy to clean... just pull out the main board and go! Most of the noise is that video card though for sure!

Yeah, it's great when they're easy to clean. Mine's not as easy, but not too bad.

About a month ago one of our office iMacs started revving and making all kinds of fan noise while it was sitting idle. I thought at the time that it needed to be cleaned out but I wasn't sure how to open it up and I was busy with other stuff anyway (oops!). I never did get back to it, though I thought about it a couple of times (procrastination strikes again). It never did make those noises again, but about two weeks later it put up a gray screen and none of the resets would fix it. It still worked because I could access it over the LAN and through logmein. I brought it to the Apple Store and they checked it over and confirmed that the video card was kaput, but as it turns out, in that model (about four years old, I think), the video card is part of the logic board so the part alone would have cost 900 bucks! Screw that. The Applecare had run out so I just bought a new iMac, which our Office Manager loves.

I can't know for sure, but I bet it would still be working if I would have cleaned it out right away. I think it got gunked up and the heat killed it. It's either that or Lynne wanted a new iMac and sabotaged it somehow. She was very happy to get the new one.

c-ya,

Dan Worley