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Having troubles with buying silent iMac

N

namria

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 25, 2011
39
22
Hey! I`ve tried to buy 27" iMac but had troubles buying a silent one.

First that Reseller gave me was really loud. That wasn`t really the sound of air stream, but seemed that cooler touches something inside and makes a noise for every twist.

They have me another one and it`s wasn`t really that silent as well. There were no sound of cooler touching something, but there is notable sound of air flow. I`ve placed iMac on solid table and temperature in the room isn`t high. I`ve download a tool that shows fan speed and it shows that they are ~1500rpm.

From iMac users and according to official information on Apple site iMac`s are really silent or dead silent as some users described it.

So, maybe something changed with latest models or I just had a bad luck? :confused:
I have sensitive hearing and I can`t accept computer with notable hum, so this was one of main reasons why I decided to get iMac.
 
Only time mine makes any noise is when I have a CD/DVD loaded. I'm able to hear my ceiling fan.
I've looked at my temps which seem high to me and I can feel air exhausting but I don't hear a thing.
You might just be unlucky, or have a keen ear.
 
Its difficult to gauge noise levels from others as its so subjective, this is something I hope isn't an issue for me when mine arrives as I too am very sensitive to noise.

Can you list the fan speeds of all three fans in the system? Might be worth trying SMC reset. is it also possible much of this could be HDD noise rather than fan? Apple use different HDD manufacturers and some are noticeably noisier than others.

Its also worth noting the environment its used under. Part of the reason I notice sounds so much is amazingly little background noise, tends to be just me and iMac with no TV/radio/music or other people in the room and being in a rural area with no traffic going by makes it all too easy to hear as opposed to having normal office or 'busy' background level to mask it.
 
Thank you for your answers. Your answers are really helpful.

I can hear HDD, and it has different "tone".
I will try SMC reset.

I really was testing iMac in a quiet room. But this is the place where I will work on it. So noise levels have to be acceptable there.
 
Is your iMac the mid-2011 model?

FYI:
From just browsing the web - looking at iStat my fans are right now at:

1146rpm
1099rpm
939rpm

It is almost completely silent. In a 100% silent room I can just barely hear it as the hot air leaves the iMac.
 
Almost Identical to Mine

JonasDK said:
Is your iMac the mid-2011 model?

FYI:
From just browsing the web - looking at iStat my fans are right now at:

1146rpm
1099rpm
939rpm

It is almost completely silent. In a 100% silent room I can just barely hear it as the hot air leaves the iMac.
Click to expand...

In fact, I know 939 is the same, am on my iPad now will check later, but it's super quiet.
 
on my 27" 10,1 iMac the CPU and Optical fan are usually spinning under 1k and the HD Fan is around 1500 rpm under regular use (torrents, videos, light internet).

I think a lot of people that say they are silent are either greatly exaggerating or came from a different system that was very loud. ;)
 

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I don't know if it is exaggeration.. I can't hear mine unless I put my ear up to it and even then it is just the vibration from the HDD. The fans are pretty much dead silent for me.
 
Hey.

All those people who say imacs are dead silent lie. Imacs, like all computers, make noise. When I got my first imac on 2009 (the 27 model) I was really surprised hiw much noise it made. It was my first desktop comouter in many years. I always used laptops, which they were dead silent (HP, Asus and then Vaio). Coming from laptops so silent I couldnt adjust to the noise if the imac, which came from the 7.200rpm HD. The fans were dead silent. That is truly great, but the HD was pure ****. I cant work if every second the HD makes hugh noise, and I do mean every second! Every time you open an app or search the web you can hear the HD working. It is IMPOSSIBLE to work with that noise. Impossible.

So what did I do? I bought an external p FW800 SSD to use as the main drive. Every time I connect the imac I eject the internal drive and then there is no more HD noise. Now it is simply amazng how silent the imac is. No HD noise, no fan noise... Nothing. Its the best solution I found. I didnt want to open up the imac cause that is so difficult and I could screw up.

Fortunately on 2010 Apple gave imacs the option to have internal SSD instead of the normal 7.200rpm drive. On 2009 that option was not available.

My next imac will have internal SSD without doubt. Performance is great but having a totally silent computer is even better, specially if you have to work a lot.

People who say their imacs are dead silent are wrong. Im sure their imacs do make HD noise, but maybe they dont hear it or arent bothered by it. I dont understand why they keep saying that imacs are dead silent... Thats misleading people.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

My '11 iMac with SSD is dead silent. Under normal loads (surfing, making docs, etc) I can't hear anything coming from my machine. If I access files on the HDD then yes, I can hear the disc reading/writing, or if the fans go above 1k rpm (which is like never, unless I fire up smc fan control) then I might hear a slight whisper from the fans. Otherwise my machine truly is dead silent.

PS: All those who say laptops are dead silent lie :)
 
"All those people who say imacs are dead silent lie"

You don't know what your talking about. I take exception to the fact your calling me a liar, or wrong. I know what I hear, and what I don't hear. It's not rocket science. EOM, and done.
 
Texran said:
"All those people who say imacs are dead silent lie"

You don't know what your talking about. I take exception to the fact your calling me a liar, or wrong. I know what I hear, and what I don't hear. It's not rocket science. EOM, and done.
Click to expand...

I believe what he was trying say was that it is impossible for the iMac to be totally silent if it has a spinning hard disk drive. That drive does make a sound but some people don't hear it or the ambient noise is masking it.

Cheers,
 
Last edited:
At first I didn't hear my mac at all as I migrated from old PC, which was working like space rocket. Now however I have started to hear little noise, but it isn't irritating at all.
Fans are following:
Optical: 995
HDD: 1099
CPU: 939
Maybe I've got used to it's quietness and that's why I hear it :)
 
Sigh

namria said:
Hey! I`ve tried to buy 27" iMac but had troubles buying a silent one.

First that Reseller gave me was really loud. That wasn`t really the sound of air stream, but seemed that cooler touches something inside and makes a noise for every twist.

They have me another one and it`s wasn`t really that silent as well. There were no sound of cooler touching something, but there is notable sound of air flow. I`ve placed iMac on solid table and temperature in the room isn`t high. I`ve download a tool that shows fan speed and it shows that they are ~1500rpm.

From iMac users and according to official information on Apple site iMac`s are really silent or dead silent as some users described it.

So, maybe something changed with latest models or I just had a bad luck? :confused:
I have sensitive hearing and I can`t accept computer with notable hum, so this was one of main reasons why I decided to get iMac.
Click to expand...

It's not silent.

There are multiple fans and a spinning hard drive inside and a DVD-drive.

The only way you could get close to silent is forgo a hard drive and go with SSD and then make sure the fan settings are set to the lowest possible setting and go with that.

There's no such thing as a completely silent computer - it will make some kind of noise at some point.
 
Of course people know the actual iMac is making noise. When people say it is silent, they mean, in practical terms, unless you have your ear up to it, they're not hearing it, even in a very quiet room.

No one sits there with their ear on their iMac, hence why people say what they are saying.

You're being unbelievable ridiculous with your comments.

EDIT: Also, the drive in my new 2011 iMac is very quiet. Quieter than the ones in my desktop, and I suspect Apple have purposely used one that is silent but also quick. I never took such care in my Windows desktop - because I'm not too fussed.
 
Sigh.

Qwaf said:
Of course people know the actual iMac is making noise. When people say it is silent, they mean, in practical terms, unless you have your ear up to it, they're not hearing it, even in a very quiet room.

No one sits there with their ear on their iMac, hence why people say what they are saying.

You're being unbelievable ridiculous with your comments.

EDIT: Also, the drive in my new 2011 iMac is very quiet. Quieter than the ones in my desktop, and I suspect Apple have purposely used one that is silent but also quick. I never took such care in my Windows desktop - because I'm not too fussed.
Click to expand...

I'm being ridiculous? Not at all.

I'm being realistic. But look, I'm an AUDIO PROFESSIONAL. I produce audio recordings. It's quiet enough to do paying work so it should be quiet enough for the OP.

However, some might find that even the quietest computer is still too noisy.

There are PCs built to minimize noise yet they still make noise to a certain extent.
 
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