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5K iMac; Warm, Loud and a response from Apple

A

Angeldust

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2013
16
0
Hi everyone,

So- I received my 5K iMac on 2/1/14 (i7, 500 SSD, 16GB RAM and M295X), in a quiet room, I can hear the fan (1200 RPM) and it sounds... rattle-y, I guess. To give you some context of the loudness, I have a 2011 MBP with an SSD 1 ft away from me, with its fans at 2000 RPM that I can't hear, while the riMac at 2 ft away is clearly audible.

Light gaming (DotA 2 at 2K res) drives the GPU to sit at 100C and pushes the fan up to 1900 RPM (which actually makes it louder than the game).

Wifi connection has dropped 3 times each day.

I picked up the phone to apple, explained my problems and a replacement iMac is on its way out to me after trying an SMC/PRAM reset. The gentleman I spoke to was extremely kind and courteous and agreed with me that what I'm experiencing should not be the case with this product. I'm very satisfied with the way that Apple has chosen to deal with this and would urge anyone with problems similar to the ones I've detailed to contact Apple. Fingers crossed that the replacement iMac will be problem free!
 
I don't want to rain on your parade, but I suspect the replacement will be the same. Both my 5K iMac and Mac mini 2012 with Yosemite drop the wifi connections every now and then. The 2012 mini I downgraded to Mavericks for this very reason but there's no solution for the iMac, of course.

The heat and fan speed is normal with the i7/295, and the slightly rattling fan may/may not be normal depending on your sensitivity to that sort of noise.

I'd suggest asking here/searching here before replacing an entire system. Would save you a lot of headaches!
 
William, you're quite right that the Wi-fi issue is present in Yosemite, I haven't experienced it on my old iMac, my MBP, nor my housemate on his Mac Mini or MBA, but I know that it's an issue.

My main concern about this machine is the rattling fan sound, that's what really tipped me off, if the fan was spinning up faster then I'd appreciate that it should be louder, but the fact that it's louder than an idling MBP shocked both myself and the Apple tech. Rather fortunately, the replacement riMac will arrive before collection of my current one is arranged, so if it turns out that they're both the same- no harm done.

Retinaimac- thanks for the linked thread, I've read over it and just as you say, responses seem to be sporadic for whether a switch out actually helps. Time will tell, and I'll provide my experiences here as another data point for any potential purchasers!
 
I have the same rattle noise, but accepted it until now ...

yes, please report back on how the exchange machine sounds!
 
Rattle is a hard word to underplay- it sounds... de-centered, I guess, like it's not quite spinning as it should/ isn't appropriately lubricated. I have read that the fan should be inaudible at 1200 RPM, mine's... scratchy.

I'll make sure to report back. In all honestly, if worst comes to worst, I'll just get a mac pro. It's massive overkill, but seems to be relatively more free of issues.
 
Angeldust said:
Rattle is a hard word to underplay- it sounds... de-centered, I guess, like it's not quite spinning as it should/ isn't appropriately lubricated. I have read that the fan should be inaudible at 1200 RPM, mine's... scratchy.

I'll make sure to report back. In all honestly, if worst comes to worst, I'll just get a mac pro. It's massive overkill, but seems to be relatively more free of issues.
Click to expand...

well, my retina imac is definitely not inaudible at 1200 RPM ... I guess I'll also have to call apple care

(I am curious if apple care will offer an exchange right away as I have received mine mid november ...)
 
apfelmann said:
well, my retina imac is definitely not inaudible at 1200 RPM ... I guess I'll also have to call apple care

(I am curious if apple care will offer an exchange right away as I have received mine mid november ...)
Click to expand...

It would be interesting to see what you get told, certainly. But then, perhaps I'm making a mountain from a mole hill so to speak. The fan definitely doesn't sound 'right', but then 100C doesn't look 'right' either. I'll see what the new machine does and then at least we have more data.
 
fan rattling is no good...

but also when you are driving the 5K screen, what are you expecting about the temps and fan? also the fan in the 5K could be a cheaper one
 
canucksfan88 said:
fan rattling is no good...

but also when you are driving the 5K screen, what are you expecting about the temps and fan?
Click to expand...

I completely agree, and that's a good point- I knew from word one that this thing wasn't going to run at 40C while gaming at 5K... But your question calls up the bigger one of 'if the temperature bought upon the chip to drive a 5K display is this high, why send it out to the public?' But that's not really a question worth discussing, it is out, the public does have it and the temps are high. The real question is, are the temps too high? I honestly don't know, I don't work for AMD.
 
Mine is whisper quiet except when I play video..even some simple youtube files tend to ramp it up (fan) but never very noisy and never any particular unbalance or harmonics
 
A "rattling" fan is definitely not normal. I've had mine for a couple of weeks and I've heard the fan once, when I was running Handbrake. Ar first I heard a slight whooshing sound, and I thought: "is that the fan?". I had to lean down and almost put my ear on the front of the screen to hear that it was coming from my iMac. Other than that, it's been whisper quite.
 
Angeldust said:
I completely agree, and that's a good point- I knew from word one that this thing wasn't going to run at 40C while gaming at 5K... But your question calls up the bigger one of 'if the temperature bought upon the chip to drive a 5K display is this high, why send it out to the public?' But that's not really a question worth discussing, it is out, the public does have it and the temps are high. The real question is, are the temps too high? I honestly don't know, I don't work for AMD.
Click to expand...

it stems to the bigger issue that I think Apple's quality control has taken a dramatic hit in recent terms. As to why release it to the public, sadly we just have to look at iOS 7. Also, Apple wanted the buzz of saying they released the 5k screen...regardless of how "ready" it was. And any GEN 1 product typically has bugs.

For whats it's worth, my rMBP runs at 100 when I play a game. My idle is about 45.
 
Gotta be better than my 2010 i7 machine.
Sunday mornings with the kids I flip it face up and cook pancakes on it.
Wonderful to work with during our cold winters but a serious bummer in August. I'm tan enough already , thanks
 
apfelmann said:
I have the same rattle noise, but accepted it until now ...
Click to expand...

Rattle? I'm not dealing with anything like that on mine. All I hear is the faint sound of air moving, like it should be. At higher speeds the sound obviously gets a bit louder, but still no rattle that I can hear.

JPoetal said:
Gotta be better than my 2010 i7 machine.
Sunday mornings with the kids I flip it face up and cook pancakes on it.
Wonderful to work with during our cold winters but a serious bummer in August. I'm tan enough already , thanks
Click to expand...

Yup, the 27" 2010 will heat up the room pretty good any time of the year. Much happier with the retina, it doesn't get as hot doing non-intensive tasks and manages heat much better during intensive tasks.
 
I forgot to mention the right side fan on my 15'' rMBP is rattling quite loudly, so I definitely know what this thread is about.
 
You should not be able to hear any rattling sound at 1200rpm (idle). It could be a faulty fan bearing. Even at higher speeds there is no rattling, just sound of blowing air.
 
Reading through this re-affirmed my decision to contact apple. Another mac user actually commented on how loud it was, which was certainly ratifying.

It does sound like there's a loose fitting, that's really what I'm hearing. Fingers crossed that the replacement will be nice and quiet. I should say- excepting these issues, it really is an amazing machine.
 
Angeldust said:
Reading through this re-affirmed my decision to contact apple. Another mac user actually commented on how loud it was, which was certainly ratifying.

It does sound like there's a loose fitting, that's really what I'm hearing. Fingers crossed that the replacement will be nice and quiet. I should say- excepting these issues, it really is an amazing machine.
Click to expand...

yes, fingers crossed! cause if your new machine is silent at 1200RPM, I'll let mine be exchanged too ;-)
 
Your experience sounds somewhat similar to mine. I ended up returning mine completely. Interestingly, I also noticed the rattling sound when the fan was running at lowest speed. It wasn't quite as loud as what you describe though. Had it been the only problem, I would probably not have returned it.

I'm starting to think there are some real problems with the quality control from Apple. Some people report completely quiet machines, while other report unacceptable noise. No doubt some of this diversity is due to very different sensibility to noise. But the reports vary so much that maybe there is more to it than just that. Perhaps some of the new iMacs are simply a lot louder than others?
 
A little update...

My replacement will come in sometime between 9-14 of this month, the fan is now actually louder than it used to be, I can hear it over youtube videos...

Very excited for the replacement though!
 
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