How noisy are Mac Pros...

[netdog]

My iMacs were both dead silent in a quiet room. Nothing would change in the room when I would boot. I am reading that Mac Pros can be quite noisy. With a fanless video card, how much noise do these things make? It's impossible to tell in the Apple Store as it is such a noisy place.

[apfhex]

With a fanless video card, how much noise do these things make?
Almost none. At boot, the fans spin up very loudly for a couple seconds. You never hear them that loud when the computer is running though.

(there are BUNCH of threads about this stretching back to when the MP's were released this time last year, if you search!)

[Peace]

Where did you hear the video card was fanless? Mine has a huge fan on it.

But in any case my Mac Pro is very quiet.Just as quiet as my iMac.

[netdog]

Where did you hear the video card was fanless? Mine has a huge fan on it.

But in any case my Mac Pro is very quiet.Just as quiet as my iMac.

Thank you. That is good to know. I assume that the new Penryn machines, as they run cooler, should be even quieter. These really are lovely machines. I wish I had just bought a Mac Pro back when I switched. Would have saved me a lot of effort.

[esaias]

The stock HD that came with the machine is very noisy :(
If you want to add more drives, look for ones which have quiet read and write.

otherwise the machines are very, very silent and they don't even spin up the fans under continous 100% processor load (such as BOINC)

-Tomi

[betelgeuse1]

Mine isn't completely silent, but its quieter than the Dell workstation I use at work, and quieter than the iMac G5 it replaced.

[SDAVE]

Almost none. At boot, the fans spin up very loudly for a couple seconds. You never hear them that loud when the computer is running though.

(there are BUNCH of threads about this stretching back to when the MP's were released this time last year, if you search!)

The fan is the ATIX1900 fan (or 7300GT if you have it). It is only about 3 seconds long before it goes into silence.

My fans kick up a notch when doing CPU intensive work, but I can't even hear it.

Either way I have a loud server in the same room, so...

[overanalyzer]

I've never noticed mine making any noise while working in my office. As others have said, there is loud fan noise for a few seconds when it first turns on, but I think that's been the case for every computer I've had. And I don't know about other Mac users, but I rarely if every restart or shutdown my Macs for anything except software updates requiring restarts.

[product26]

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http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=235857&highlight=noisy
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=237352&highlight=noisy
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=334357&highlight=noisy

[sblasl]

Don't be fooled.

IMHO

I have a Mac Pro and it is very, very quite. These machines still make noise however so don't let anyone tell you that they are dead silent, it is not possible unless they have disabled all of the cooling fans.

They are real quite and if you do your homework and with a little luck as well there are large hard drives you can put in the Mac Pro that are very quite as well.

[Mr.Noisy]

Quiet.............Real Quite, Unless i'm burning to disc, other than that, only way i know it's on is that i'm working on it, no HD start up noise as ive set it up so all HD's never sleep when idle.

[flyinmac]

My iMacs were both dead silent in a quiet room. Nothing would change in the room when I would boot. I am reading that Mac Pros can be quite noisy. With a fanless video card, how much noise do these things make? It's impossible to tell in the Apple Store as it is such a noisy place.

My 2.66 GHz Mac Pro with both it's stock hard drive and a Western Digital 500 GB hard drive is very quiet.

The only time I can hear it at all is in a room with absolutely no noise. Even at night when everyone else is sleeping and nothing else is running, I can barely hear it.

I would actually say it is quieter than the Mac Mini G4 I replaced with it. The Mini was quiet most of the time, but if I opened a few windows and browser instances, I could hear the fans (although they were not that loud). With the Mac Pro, I have to get the room to be absolutely silenced to even think about hearing it.

If you have nothing in the room, and it's just you and the computer, and no appliances, then you will hear it slightly. Otherwise, it's really quiet. I'd actually imagine that your keyboard will be more noticeable to you in terms of noise.

By far, it is quieter than the two iMac G5 computers I've had, the Mac Mini G4, my iMac G3, and every PC I've ever gotten near. The only computer I've used that I would say is quieter than this Mac Pro is my wife's iBook G4 1.33 GHz 12-inch (but while I rarely hear the iBook's fans, I do occasionally notice it's hard drive - by comparison I think I've only heard the hard drives in the Mac Pro one or two times).

[bld44]

The fan is the ATIX1900 fan (or 7300GT if you have it). It is only about 3 seconds long before it goes into silence.

The startup fan noise is actually a dust buster action, and not your video card. The 7300GT does not have an on-board fan.

[SDDave2007]

Well I hear a very loud whirring fan noise and.....

Oh...wait....:D Thats my wifes WinXP box!!!

turn that thing off..... and it scary how quiet it get here with just the MacPro running.... and thats with FOUR 400gig Hard Disks inside:apple:

[SDAVE]

The startup fan noise is actually a dust buster action, and not your video card. The 7300GT does not have an on-board fan.

Dust buster action? Being a computer builder for almost a decade, I figured it was due to the Mac not giving a command to throttle down the fan speed on boot instantly...it waits for the EFI to give it the command to slow down, that's why on power up it takes almsot 3 seconds. On restarts, it has no noise.

Well that's my take on it.

[bld44]

Dust buster action? Being a computer builder for almost a decade, I figured it was due to the Mac not giving a command to throttle down the fan speed on boot instantly...it waits for the EFI to give it the command to slow down, that's why on power up it takes almsot 3 seconds. On restarts, it has no noise.

Well that's my take on it.

From a technical standpoint, that's probably exactly why. It has always been referred to as a "dust buster" on here, and is probably easier to explain than the technical reason.

[SDAVE]

From a technical standpoint, that's probably exactly why. It has always been referred to as a "dust buster" on here, and is probably easier to explain than the technical reason.

Ahhh ok :)

For a second I thought it was actually trying to clean the dust out...but you know Mac people, they call the motherboard the "logic board" :D

[JWFerne]

I have both a iMac and a Mac pro:

The iMac is super quiet - 1/10 on a noise scale. The Mac pro more like a 5/10. Quieter than my old windows PC's though.

For me it wasn't the sound of the machines, but the overall heat produced. The iMac isn't very hot at all... i'm very impressed. My MacPro was a toaster oven :( Ended up frying my ati 1900 card. Waiting for a new one to be delievered.

If they put a kick ass graphics card in the iMac, I'd say it would it would be a pc slayer and on a lot of christmas lists. As it stands, it's average but a great machine and experience. It's funny how $100, if that, could make the difference in a graphics card, but apple chose to not put in the top card for some reason. My guess is heat. Form over function wins again in this case :(

[flyinmac]

I have both a iMac and a Mac pro:

The iMac is super quiet - 1/10 on a noise scale. The Mac pro more like a 5/10. Quieter than my old windows PC's though.

For me it wasn't the sound of the machines, but the overall heat produced. The iMac isn't very hot at all... i'm very impressed. My MacPro was a toaster oven :( Ended up frying my ati 1900 card. Waiting for a new one to be delievered.

If they put a kick ass graphics card in the iMac, I'd say it would it would be a pc slayer and on a lot of christmas lists. As it stands, it's average but a great machine and experience. It's funny how $100, if that, could make the difference in a graphics card, but apple chose to not put in the top card for some reason. My guess is heat. Form over function wins again in this case :(

You could be right that the iMac is technically quieter. But, I think it tends to sound louder (at least to me) since the fans are right in-front of your face. And, in my case, the noise of the fans bounced off my desk (since it sits on the desk) and hit me smack in the ears :p

The Mac Pro seems much quieter to me. But, this could be because it is not right in-front of my face, and it's fans are not at ear level on the top of my desk. Instead, it sits near the floor, and is further away from me. So, what little noise it makes, has to travel much further for me to hear it.

[Reciprocity]

Mine is very noisy!! Specially with read&write..I installed a second hard drive a few weeks ago(Seagate Barracuda),and the damn thing was vibrating like crazy..So I took it out and tightened the screws, but nothing! So I fanally decided to put two peices of tire rubber between it and the drive rail. It works fine, but it doesn't say anywhere in the instructions about makeshift inovations to keep it from making noise..

[mward333]

Mine is extremely quiet..... I don't notice the noise at all. When I turn it on, I'm the first person there in the morning, and it doesn't add any noise to my quiet office. My G5 PowerMac used to be so loud, so this is a great improvement, in my opinion.

[flyinmac]

Mine is very noisy!! Specially with read&write..I installed a second hard drive a few weeks ago(Seagate Barracuda),and the damn thing was vibrating like crazy..So I took it out and tightened the screws, but nothing! So I fanally decided to put two peices of tire rubber between it and the drive rail. It works fine, but it doesn't say anywhere in the instructions about makeshift inovations to keep it from making noise..


In that particular instance, it sounds more like an issue with the noise / vibration of the drive. It's not really the Mac's fault if the drive has a lot of vibration.

Some drives just make a lot of noise. Others are quiet.

[Sesshi]

It's too quiet, if you ask me. In demanding situations it doesn't put enough air through the system.

[flyinmac]

It's too quiet, if you ask me. In demanding situations it doesn't put enough air through the system.

You could be right there. They are probably being a bit conservative since the whole G5 thing.

They promoted the iMac G5 as being "whisper quiet" and got slammed with complaints of loud noise.

The iMac G5 was the quietest computer I had ever owned at the time. But, they were apparently noisier than what people expected from a "whisper quiet" computer.

Each subsequent iMac after that had the fans spinning a bit slower. And, I know even the fans in my Mac Mini G4 will ramp-up pretty quick.

I imagine that the fans in the Mac Pro are probably set to keep everything working safely. But, if they ramped-up as fast as those in my Mini do, I'm sure it would keep everything nice and cool. Of course, then we'd likely have more people complaining of noise.

I am not personally using it, but I have heard mention of a tool that allows someone to set their fans higher if they want.

But, I haven't had any heat issues. So, I've just left it alone to manage itself.

Personally, I'm fine with any level of noise that doesn't exceed the noise of your average PC.

But, Apple may be stung from the criticism of it's previous G5 lines. I remember the reviews in the Mac magazines highlighting wind-tunnel effect of the PowerMac G5's.

Perhaps a meeting somewhere in the middle would be best. But, as long as it's reliable, I'm fine.

[Sesshi]

I think they've probably judged their still-target-market well as far as the machine tuning is concerned. People who think they do demanding stuff, but in reality a far less powerful and robust computer would suffice for their needs. i.e. all but the most actually demanding creative professionals.

As for absolute reliability, all I can tell you is that just one of the Pros survived (and that not fully) an environmental / workload situation that all my Precision 690's passed. It was an extreme, but it is a telling forebear of future reliability in variable environments.

[motoxpress]

My 2.6 with the ATI card is very quiet until it really gets pushed and then the video card speaks up a bit but never noisy.

It does put out the heat however...

-mx

[tobytoby]

Mine is quiet, but I guess it's all about what you're used to. In my case, my PC was much noisier and against that it sounds much quieter. I also have a (slighly old) Dell Precision Xeon machine in my office, and that is noisier, but only a fraction (albeit I hear it less as it's headless and sits at the other side of the room).

[motoxpress]

My measurement is that my peripherals are noisier than my MacPro. That tells me it's a quiet system.

-mx

[dpaanlka]

I usually can't tell it's on.

[product26]

Hard part about that is that all the components are right in front of your face. The nice thing about the mac pro is that you can tuck it under a desk.

The thing that will make a mac pro loud will be hard drives. I have all 4 bays filled and I can hear them all spinning. it isn't bad, because the read/write is really quiet. I do set them to spin down if possible, but because 2 of them are a mirrored raid, there is always a constant noise from the system. Just a slight hiss from the drives, that's all... nothing that bothers me.



They promoted the iMac G5 as being "whisper quiet" and got slammed with complaints of loud noise.

[pprior]

i'm the pcsilentreview kind of PC user, so I'm a fanatic about noise. I'd rate my imac at a 1-2/10 scale (excellent) and the mac pro (3ghz with 1900ATI upgrade) about a 4.

It's fairly quiet but certainly not even close to silent. It doesn't bother me tremendously, but I've done better with DIY Pc in the past.

[flyinmac]

Hard part about that is that all the components are right in front of your face. The nice thing about the mac pro is that you can tuck it under a desk.

The thing that will make a mac pro loud will be hard drives. I have all 4 bays filled and I can hear them all spinning. it isn't bad, because the read/write is really quiet. I do set them to spin down if possible, but because 2 of them are a mirrored raid, there is always a constant noise from the system. Just a slight hiss from the drives, that's all... nothing that bothers me.

Yes, I completely agree. The issue with the iMac was that it's fans were right in-front of your face. And, the noise from the bottom one would reverberate off the top of the desk.

The desk would act as an amplifier or redirector of sorts just like it did with the speakers on the bottom of the computer.

[illegalprelude]

if its anything like the PMG5, it will be indeed quite. I only hear mine when I turn her on and she revs up.

Other times can be when its hot and im doing alot of work with Final Cut and etc, Other wise, she barely hums

[termina3]

My APC UPS makes more noise than the Mac Pro... and the UPS is pretty quiet when running off of the wall power.

Seriously. You'll barely hear a hum.

[grovertdog]

Compared to a "silenced" PC, my MacPro 2.6 was quieter. Compared to either of my 24 al iMacs, one 2.4, one 2.8e, the MacPro HOWLS. It is far from silent, but far from loud, if that makes sense.

Yah, I had all four bays filled, but not in a RAID array, and drives shut down when not in use... ATI card which may have some factor, but hell, running Safari?

The MP was under my desk but still, was much louder than either of my iMacs. Not even close.

rt

[Sesshi]

i'm the pcsilentreview kind of PC user, so I'm a fanatic about noise. I'd rate my imac at a 1-2/10 scale (excellent) and the mac pro (3ghz with 1900ATI upgrade) about a 4.

It's fairly quiet but certainly not even close to silent. It doesn't bother me tremendously, but I've done better with DIY Pc in the past.

It's not too bad for a computer with no truly overt silencing features - and yes, you can do better. My XPS 710 H2C is not far behind the MP (it has a slightly different class of noise) and it has an OC'd quad-core with two 8800GTX's.

The problem is that it has no overt silencing features, and therefore the noise level it's running at provides - like the iMac - just barely enough airflow for stable operation.

[termina3]

overt silencing features

Sorry, but for the ignorant one can you define "overt silencing features"?