Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Anybody else finding their Early 2008 fans a bit loud?

netdog

netdog

macrumors 603
Original poster
Do these things run all the time? My speeds seem in line with everybody elses,

Exhaust 599
CPU 499
Power 639 at the moment
HD 800 (three drives)

But don't these things ever shut down? My temps seem very low. I'd prefer a little more heat and a little more quiet.

Might a fix bring these numbers down as these boxes run so cool? It is under my desk, and I definitely hear it all over the room, not that it is loud like when a MPB fires up fans or compared to most desktops, but still. I expected something a bit closer to the iMac in DBs when I am not pushing it. Is something wrong?
 
I can hear mine, it sits on top of my desk about a foot away. I only hear it in dead silence. So I guess its normal but it is louder then a 24" iMac 2.8GHz and Macbook Pro.
 
No, they never shut down because stable temperature is nearly as important as low temperature. Stable temperature requires constant airflow.
 
Dead silent with five internal hard drives (Seagate 7200.11 drives)... I'll bust out the decibel meter to give you a reading.
 
Six internal drives and sitting on top of my desk about 18" away. I can only hear the fans if the room is quiet. Doesn't bother me at all. Much, much quieter than the G4, which was under the desk, the MP replaced.
 
kirkbross said:
6 hard drives or are you including two optical?
Click to expand...

Six harddrives plus the one optical it ships with. I've added the 5th drive in the spare optical bay and the 6th drive goes in the PCI slot area. Both attached to the spare ODD SATA ports.
 
netdog said:
Do these things run all the time? My speeds seem in line with everybody elses,

Exhaust 599
CPU 499
Power 639 at the moment
HD 800 (three drives)

But don't these things ever shut down? My temps seem very low. I'd prefer a little more heat and a little more quiet.

Might a fix bring these numbers down as these boxes run so cool? It is under my desk, and I definitely hear it all over the room, not that it is loud like when a MPB fires up fans or compared to most desktops, but still. I expected something a bit closer to the iMac in DBs when I am not pushing it. Is something wrong?
Click to expand...

Any chance of putting up an mp3 of the sound so we can hear? 🙂

It won't tell us how loud the sound is relatively speaking, but
we'd get an idea of what type of sound it is. Would be interesting
to hear, thanks. If anyone else can do likewise for comparison,
that would be helpful too.

Cheers.
 
I too was a bit disappointed to hear a disturbing noise coming from the mac pro (kind of weird resonance, easily heard a few meters away and that disappear when the case is open...)

By allowing my harddrives to sleep, I definitely could hear the resonance go away, then I tested several configuration :

My configuration : stock harddrive (seagate 320Gb) and two samsung spinpoint p166 (500Gb).

With the stock harddrive alone : no problem, but it suffices to add one of the two samsung for this disturbing resonance to appear...

The two samsung together : no resonance.

So I'll be removing the seagate and keeping the two samsung...

CCC is cloning the seagate right now...

So for the OP, make sure the noise that bothers you is really coming from the fans.

It might well be the harddrives instead...

phjo
 
phjo said:
I too was a bit disappointed to hear a disturbing noise coming from the mac pro (kind of weird resonance, easily heard a few meters away and that disappear when the case is open...)

By allowing my harddrives to sleep, I definitely could hear the resonance go away, then I tested several configuration :

My configuration : stock harddrive (seagate 320Gb) and two samsung spinpoint p166 (500Gb).

With the stock harddrive alone : no problem, but it suffices to add one of the two samsung for this disturbing resonance to appear...

The two samsung together : no resonance.

So I'll be removing the seagate and keeping the two samsung...

CCC is cloning the seagate right now...

So for the OP, make sure the noise that bothers you is really coming from the fans.

It might well be the harddrives instead...

phjo
Click to expand...

You are right! It is the Hard Drive making the noise I Moved my stock western digital 320GB hard drive in Bay 2 and the noise and resonance lessend somewhat it was still there but a lot less.

anyone suggestions on replacing the stock drive because it is kind of loud

I have a 2.8 8-Core Mac Pro
 
blackgmc said:
You are right! It is the Hard Drive making the noise I Moved my stock western digital 320GB hard drive in Bay 2 and the noise and resonance lessend somewhat it was still there but a lot less.

anyone suggestions on replacing the stock drive because it is kind of loud

I have a 2.8 8-Core Mac Pro
Click to expand...

CCC finished its job,
and I can now testify that the samsung spinpoint p166 (HD501LJ) is near silent... I have two of them in bay 2 and 3 (bay 1 being empty right now) and now I can't hear the mac pro (it is under the desk), which appears to be quieter than my lcd ! (yes, I can hear, somewhat, my lcd, a HP w22...)

http://www.storagereview.com might give you some other ideas...

phjo
 
phjo said:
I too was a bit disappointed to hear a disturbing noise coming from the mac pro (kind of weird resonance, easily heard a few meters away and that disappear when the case is open...)

By allowing my harddrives to sleep, I definitely could hear the resonance go away, then I tested several configuration :
Click to expand...

I'm not doubting what you say, but just out of interest, how can you
know that the harddrives are asleep, but the fans are still going? 🙂

Also, can the disk be forced to spin down?

Cheers.
 
Infrared said:
I'm not doubting what you say, but just out of interest, how can you
know that the harddrives are asleep, but the fans are still going? 🙂

Also, can the disk be forced to spin down?

Cheers.
Click to expand...

First of all the fans never stop when the mac is on !

But, for energy saving consideration, the harddrives can be put to sleep, although you can't force it manually... You can just allow them to be put to sleep when they have been inactive long enough. (System preferences->Energy saving...)

A harddrive spinning up is easily recognizable if you listen carefully, and a turning wheel for a few seconds waiting for some folder content to appear is quite sufficient proof the relevant harddrive had been put to sleep...

phjo
 
phjo said:
First of all the fans never stop when the mac is on !

But, for energy saving consideration, the harddrives can be put to sleep, although you can't force it manually... You can just allow them to be put to sleep when they have been inactive long enough. (System preferences->Energy saving...)

A harddrive spinning up is easily recognizable if you listen carefully, and a turning wheel for a few seconds waiting for some folder content to appear is quite sufficient proof the relevant harddrive had been put to sleep...

phjo
Click to expand...

Ah, thanks very much.

I'm not sure the fans ever spin down during normal use for me, even
with the prefs option ticked. Must be the way I work or something.

Anyway, I've just experimented a little. With iStat running and visible
I let the machine start to go to sleep. More or less all the noise
from the machine disappeared - only a very slight hum was audible.
At this point the screen had gone black, but the lights weren't yet
slowly flashing. I jiggled the mouse and the display came back to
life. I could see the fan speeds in iStat occasionally change by 1 or
2 rpm, and the dashboard clock second hand was moving. So what
do we have here? A silent machine, fans running, disk apparently
sleeping. Conclusion: the disk alone is responsible for nearly all
noise from the machine.

It's a Seagate 7200.10 320GB 8Mb Cache model, btw.
 
This is the quietest mac I've ever owned. It sits right under the desk and unless I put in a disc I really don't know it there and I do audio all day long so I'm hyper sensitive to this issue.

Cheers
 
My machine sits on the floor maybe 2 feet away from me, and I can't hear it unless there's no other noise in the room...and even then it's just barely audible. This is THE quietest computer I've owned, other than my old C64 (which didn't have fans 🙂)

-Bryan
 
phjo said:
First of all the fans never stop when the mac is on !
But, for energy saving consideration, the harddrives can be put to sleep, although you can't force it manually...
Click to expand...

The fans do stop when you put the computer to sleep, at least on my PowerMac G4 they do.

Of course you can force the hard drives to sleep. Do you really have a Mac?
Under the Applemenu, simply select "Sleep".
 
Infrared said:
Ah, thanks very much.

I'm not sure the fans ever spin down during normal use for me, even
with the prefs option ticked. Must be the way I work or something.
Click to expand...

You mean the harddrive I guess, not the fans. Indeed, if you have only one harddrive, the 2Gb stock ram and are working on your mac, most probably your harddrive would never be allowed to sleep... (Or you have to do very, very little on your mac...)

Anyway, I've just experimented a little. With iStat running and visible
I let the machine start to go to sleep. More or less all the noise
from the machine disappeared - only a very slight hum was audible.
At this point the screen had gone black, but the lights weren't yet
slowly flashing. I jiggled the mouse and the display came back to
life. I could see the fan speeds in iStat occasionally change by 1 or
2 rpm, and the dashboard clock second hand was moving. So what
do we have here? A silent machine, fans running, disk apparently
sleeping. Conclusion: the disk alone is responsible for nearly all
noise from the machine.

It's a Seagate 7200.10 320GB 8Mb Cache model, btw.
Click to expand...

Yep, the same one that is now waiting on my desk for some future use... As an external hd maybe...

phjo
 
bigbird said:
The fans do stop when you put the computer to sleep, at least on my PowerMac G4 they do.

Of course you can force the hard drives to sleep. Do you really have a Mac?
Under the Applemenu, simply select "Sleep".
Click to expand...

Thank you for your very informative answer... 🙄

Of course, when I wrote <<the mac is on>> I meant not sleeping... (my macpro is configured never to go sleep by itself, but the screen and harddrives can)

There's not much difference anyway between putting the computer to sleep and shutting it down when the said computer reboots by itself when awaken... (except shutting it down properly is certainly better...)

Mine did that for the first time this morning 😡

phjo
 
My MP is whisper quiet, if there are ANY other PC's on in the room, then those fans cover up any sound that comes out of my MP. With that being said, even in dead silence it is very quiet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back