Has anyone modded the base M1 iMac with a second fan?

[lkar]

As you may or may not know, the base M1 iMac throttles, due to a purposely made design flaw by Apple, they left out the second fan. You can see the difference in heat here:

The left one is the base M1 iMac.

If someone can use a hole saw attachment and drill a perfectly round circle and attach a small quiet external fan to run all the time, then the base iMac will never throttle and you would get the performance of an upgraded iMac without paying the extra money for it.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

As you may or may not know, the base M1 iMac throttles, due to a purposely made design flaw by Apple, they left out the second fan. You can see the difference in heat here:

The left one is the base M1 iMac.

If someone can use a hole saw attachment and drill a perfectly round circle and attach a small quiet external fan to run all the time, then the base iMac will never throttle and you would get the performance of an upgraded iMac without paying the extra money for it.

Have your calculation included the cost of losing warranty?

 

[lkar]

Have your calculation included the cost of losing warranty?

It was released in 2021, so some people's iMacs should be out of warranty by now.

 

[uller6]

I'm actually curious if anyone's gone the other way, and removed the fan from the base 24" iMac. I think, if the fan were replaced by a slightly larger heatsink to move the CPU heat to the aluminum shell, that you could get away without any fans in the iMac. Maybe I'll try in a couple years when the price drops enough to make it a fun project...