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iMac Optical Drive Fan Going Crazy After Replacing it With SSD

J

jtw11195

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 5, 2011
7
0
Today I removed the optical drive from my late 2009 iMac and installed an SSD in its place. Everything works perfectly, except for one thing...my optical drive fan goes crazy when I turn the iMac on. It goes to full blast and it sounds like my computer will blast off into space at any time. I'm aware that this is a common issue when replacing/upgrading hard drives, and so I did some research and found an app called SSD Fan Control that fixed the problem for the most part.

In a nutshell, the fan runs at normal speed and is quiet when I'm logged in and actually using the computer, thanks to SSD Fan Control. However, when I turn the iMac on and it's at the white boot-up screen with the Apple logo, the fan goes up to full blast. Once the computer logs in, the fan quiets down because SSD Fan Control is set to launch at login.

I was wondering if there's a way to make it so that the fan is quiet at the boot screen too...it's quite annoying turning my iMac on and hearing that obnoxiously loud whirring sound as it's booting up. Is it possible, or can it just be controlled while I'm actually logged in?

Any help is greatly appreciated! :D
 
A

apedance

macrumors member
Sep 1, 2012
86
0
Vienna
jtw11195 said:
Today I removed the optical drive from my late 2009 iMac and installed an SSD in its place...
Click to expand...


Hi.

I don't know if this will work on your machine with your replaced component.

But why not give it a try.

Download the Demo of iStats. -> http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

Set the optical drive fan to a "normal" speed and try/reboot it again.



My iMac (late 2012) does keep the fan speed when I reboot. Even when I boot into Windows via Bootcamp.
 
dangerly

dangerly

macrumors regular
Oct 27, 2009
151
5
European Dis-Union
Few months ago i replaced the optical drive with a SSD in my iMac (2009).
To prevent the fan to go crazy i attached the optical drive thermal sensor to the HDD (so now the HDD has two thermal sensors attached). This way i have not had any problems with the optical drive fan going crazy and the temperatures inside the iMac are all within normal ranges, even when i play games that make CPU-HDD-GPU work hard.
 
J

jtw11195

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 5, 2011
7
0
apedance said:
Hi.

I don't know if this will work on your machine with your replaced component.

But why not give it a try.

Download the Demo of iStats. -> http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

Set the optical drive fan to a "normal" speed and try/reboot it again.



My iMac (late 2012) does keep the fan speed when I reboot. Even when I boot into Windows via Bootcamp.
Click to expand...

That didn't work :( The fan still runs at full speed at the boot screen
 
A

apedance

macrumors member
Sep 1, 2012
86
0
Vienna
This!

dangerly said:
Few months ago i replaced the optical drive with a SSD in my iMac (2009).
To prevent the fan to go crazy i attached the optical drive thermal sensor to the HDD (so now the HDD has two thermal sensors attached). This way i have not had any problems with the optical drive fan going crazy and the temperatures inside the iMac are all within normal ranges, even when i play games that make CPU-HDD-GPU work hard.
Click to expand...

I guess you have to open your iMac againg :/
 
A

AdamCRHall

macrumors newbie
Oct 6, 2020
2
0
A little late but for future reference - this may be caused by the MXM sensor plugged into the back of the board behind the WiFi card.

I upgraded from an i5 to an i7, the ODD fan was at max speed afterwards. I spent ages purchasing a new ODD sensor, replacement fan, OWC ssd thermal sensor cable kit, etc to see if any of those were the issue and I had no luck.

After reinspecting, it turns out I’d either forgotten to plug the MXM sensor back onto the board or had knocked it out somehow.


This resolved my issue and I hope this helps anyone in the future.
 
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