Does the computer run loud or quiet? Are the fans annoyingly audible? I have a lian-li tower and can hardly sleep when its on. Theres 4 fans in it and its loud and annoying.
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Question for owners of Powermac G5 towers
- Thread starter CaptainCaveMann
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My father has one, and though I have not spent exceptional amounts of time using it, I have never noticed annoying sounds. It's actually pretty quiet from my experience.
jsw
Moderator emeritus
I've got a Rev. A dual-2.0, which I'd assume to be at least as loud as the current revs. And, aside from when doing heavy-duty processing, it's very quiet - roughly as loud as one of those little air-freshener plugins that comes with its own fan. Not silent, but not remotely loud.
Gotta 1.8 single. It's not bad at all. It can be heard, but it's very quiet. I have a G4 tower at work and it's way way louder. I could easily sleep with it in the room. The G5 I mean.
cmvsm
macrumors 6502a
G5 Noise
I've got a Dual 2.0 Revision B and when I'm not working on it, you don't even know it's there. I usually have the monitor shut down and keep the hard drives working and it is quiet as you could want.
Now when I whip out the serious graphic design software, the fans start working, which they should because I'm getting my money out of the processors and they need to be cool!! What's the point of having fans if they remain off the entire time??
The sound is no more than an average computer. I also have a PC, and the difference is that the PC fans seem to stay on all the time unless I put the computer to sleep. There really is no intelligence there...its either on or off. The G5's fans seem to be demand only, silent in the downtime, and working when they are needed. Just like it shoud be... 😎
I've got a Dual 2.0 Revision B and when I'm not working on it, you don't even know it's there. I usually have the monitor shut down and keep the hard drives working and it is quiet as you could want.
Now when I whip out the serious graphic design software, the fans start working, which they should because I'm getting my money out of the processors and they need to be cool!! What's the point of having fans if they remain off the entire time??
The sound is no more than an average computer. I also have a PC, and the difference is that the PC fans seem to stay on all the time unless I put the computer to sleep. There really is no intelligence there...its either on or off. The G5's fans seem to be demand only, silent in the downtime, and working when they are needed. Just like it shoud be... 😎
I've got a dual 2.5 right beside me, and a PC in a corner behind my desk. The PC fan is LOUD, and on constantly (when the computer is on... I am still making the transition and need to turn on the PC every once in a while). When the PC is off (and the G5 on), the room is quiet again.
Ok that's the comparison with the PC, but that may not tell you very much.
The G5 modifies the fan speed depending on the activity. I find that when I move from low processor to even moderate processor usage, the fans rev up. It is noticable only because it was dead quiet previously. However, once reved up, even if you maintain moderate or high CPU usage, the tower is relatively quiet, and the fans seem quieter than when there were revving up. It is only during the transitions where I find it is noticable.
Ok that's the comparison with the PC, but that may not tell you very much.
The G5 modifies the fan speed depending on the activity. I find that when I move from low processor to even moderate processor usage, the fans rev up. It is noticable only because it was dead quiet previously. However, once reved up, even if you maintain moderate or high CPU usage, the tower is relatively quiet, and the fans seem quieter than when there were revving up. It is only during the transitions where I find it is noticable.
I have a dual 2ghz and it is practically silent. As others have said the fans do spin up sometimes, when you start doing more intense stuff, and even then you have to do high usage stuff for a long time for them to really get going.
I am frequently working on large renders in Cinema 4D, DVD studio pro 3 and motion. I have only got my fans raoring a few times. By roaring i mean all fans running at full speed - it sounds pretty awesome.
but yeah they are seriously quite most of the time. My powerbook is louder most of the time
I am frequently working on large renders in Cinema 4D, DVD studio pro 3 and motion. I have only got my fans raoring a few times. By roaring i mean all fans running at full speed - it sounds pretty awesome.
but yeah they are seriously quite most of the time. My powerbook is louder most of the time
My bed is right behind my dual-2.0 tower, and even running Folding 24/7, I've never had difficulty sleeping with the fans running. The latest firmware update seems to have helped quite a bit in reducing the already quiet fan noise. I would say that you don't have anything to worry about in terms of the G5's noise.
Yeah, generally the fans in G5's are quiet. The thing you may need to think about is which Graphics card to use. I upgraded my stock ATI 9600 to a 9800 and the cheap fan on the card made more noise than the rest of the fans put together 😱
CaptainCaveMann said:
Mine tends to be quieter than my Powerbook. The only time I have ever heard the fans was when I was editing some video in FCE and had forgotten to quit a couple of programs that were running in the background (SETI and I can't remember what the other one was). Even with that, the fans were quieter than any PC I had in the past. Hope that helps.
oingoboingo
macrumors 6502a
Bob21 said:
Agreed. My 1.6GHz G5 system was very quiet until I replaced the stock Radeon 9600 Pro video card with a 256MB Radeon 9800 Pro Special Edition card. The cooling fan on the 9800 Pro produces a higher-pitched noise than the G5 system cooling fans, and really stands out. It has certainly made the G5 go from being almost completely unobstrusive to being basically as noisy as a regular PC. If you search around on www.xlr8yourmac.com there is an article about replacing the stock cooling fan on the 9800 Pro with a quieter one.
The extra noise was worth it for the added graphics performance though. No question.
broken_keyboard
macrumors 65816
On my G5 2.0 the CPU fans are very quiet (but not silent). The video board fan (Radeon 9800) was not quiet, so I replaced it with a low noise kit. Since then I have upgraded to an NVidia 6800 and have felt no need to get a low noise kit. It is defintely louder than my silenced 9800 was, but not a loud as the original 9800 fan. The other thing to watch out for is noisy CD/Hard drives. The CD drive that shipped with this G5 is a noisy POS. I want to smash it. The second HD I bought is also much quieter than the one that came with the computer.
With a bit of effort buying cooling kits and quiet drives I think the G5 could be made almost silent. When Apple were thinking of making a quiet computer I don't think they thought about the unit as a whole. They only thought "How can we make the CPU fans quieter?" and then some other non-engineering guy went out and got the best price he could on HDs and CD-ROMs regardless of noise. And the engineering guys went *sigh*
With a bit of effort buying cooling kits and quiet drives I think the G5 could be made almost silent. When Apple were thinking of making a quiet computer I don't think they thought about the unit as a whole. They only thought "How can we make the CPU fans quieter?" and then some other non-engineering guy went out and got the best price he could on HDs and CD-ROMs regardless of noise. And the engineering guys went *sigh*
oingoboingo said:
I noticed that article awhile ago, but didn't think it was worth the effort. Most of the time I have iTunes running which drowns the noise out. Plus it gives me a good excuse to buy the X800 😀