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5k iMac fan noise

B

bwsteg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 25, 2012
390
27
Queens NY
Hello everyone, I've noticed that the fan noise becomes apparent at times while I'm doing heavy webbrowsing. By this I mean multiple browsers with multiples tabs open in each. The fan is audible for a few minutes then quiets down.

Is this normal? I have the i7 with 16gb ram, 512ssd and upgraded gpu.. Thanks
 
bwsteg said:
Hello everyone, I've noticed that the fan noise becomes apparent at times while I'm doing heavy webbrowsing. By this I mean multiple browsers with multiples tabs open in each. The fan is audible for a few minutes then quiets down.

Is this normal? I have the i7 with 16gb ram, 512ssd and upgraded gpu.. Thanks
Click to expand...

Flash content can do that.

Scrolling through Facebook actually does consume quite some resources, due to the way it's coded. Monitoring through iStat Menus, I found that it pushed the CPU to 100%+ and also utilized quite a bit of VRAM.
 
I see, I also just noticed that using youtube also makes the fans noisy. Which i assume is Flash?
 
bwsteg said:
I see, I also just noticed that using youtube also makes the fans noisy. Which i assume is Flash?
Click to expand...

Are you watching Youtube in Chrome or Safari? I've totally switched to Safari b/c it keeps things cooler as compared to Chrome. With my 680mx iMac, the temp needle really doesn't move much even with a few videos going at the same time in multiple Safari windows opened.
 
I just found the iMac's purring fan noise gone,
when I lay it down. :eek:
 

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bwsteg said:
I see, I also just noticed that using youtube also makes the fans noisy. Which i assume is Flash?
Click to expand...

I haven't noticed any increased fan activity at all since switching to Safari, even on 4K videos.

yjchua95 said:
By default, it's Flash.

You can enable the HTML5 player by going to youtube.com/html5
Click to expand...

YouTube will now default to HTML5 when it is supported by the browser.

---

yjchua95 said:
Scrolling through Facebook actually does consume quite some resources, due to the way it's coded. Monitoring through iStat Menus, I found that it pushed the CPU to 100%+ and also utilized quite a bit of VRAM.
Click to expand...

It's because of the way Facebook loads images and more posts as you scroll. If you scroll down fast it has to load a bunch of images and more posts at once and that's also what causes it to lag so much.

By 100% you mean single core. I can't push Safari past 75% of a single core.
 
Last edited:
No, it makes noise under various loads for a variety of reasons. I'm trying to ignore it.
 
redheeler said:
I haven't noticed any increased fan activity at all since switching to Safari, even on 4K videos.



YouTube will now default to HTML5 when it is supported by the browser.

---



It's because of the way Facebook loads images and more posts as you scroll. If you scroll down fast it has to load a bunch of images and more posts at once and that's also what causes it to lag so much.

By 100% you mean single core. I can't push Safari past 75% of a single core.
Click to expand...

Yup, I mean single core.

Full processor load would be 800% (100% for each thread. I've an i7. )
 
If iMac retina has fan problem because of the squished in nature of all in one, I guess it might be worth consideration to buy a silent Windows desktop together with the Dell 5k monitor as an alternative if you don't really need the Mac OS.
 
I run multiple browsers with multiple tabs going all day long and there is 0 fan noise at all.

This is with 13 tabs in Safari and 2 in Firefox.

--- CPU Stats ---
CPU temp: 47.125°C ▁▂▃▅▆▇

--- Fan Stats ---
Total fans in system: 1
Fan 0 speed: 1196.0 RPM ▁▂▃▅▆▇
 
I have a maxed out version (i7, 4GB graphics, 3TB Fusion Drive). When running OS X and doing "normal" work (including things like Logic Pro X editing), it's completely silent. When I strain it a little bit, and this includes full screen flash video, the fan kicks in, but it's barely distracting (and barely noticeable when playing any audio). When gaming under Windows in Boot Camp, the fan kicks in immediately at presumably full speed, but that's expectable.
 
I have a maxed out one (1T SSD not Fusion); currently my Chrome has 11 tabs, my Safari has 6, and my FireFox has 57 (Tab Mix Plus allows rows of tabs). No fan noise, no CPU. I use QuickJava plugin in FF to disable Flash except when needed, as a result there's no significant load from having all this open.

Try disabling Flash whenever you can - many YT videos etc. will run fine without Flash (HTML 5).
 
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