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mrgreen4242

macrumors 601
Original poster
Feb 10, 2004
4,377
9
Ok, for all the iMac G5 owners I am interested to hear about the average and maximum temperatures you experience with your machine. Specifically, I would like to know what your CPU and Harddrive temps are during "normal" operation (browsing the web, checking email, etc) and what kind of extreme temps you get under heavy usage. I am also interested to hear how you feel the noise levels scale up with these temperatures.

If you can post any information regarding these please also include your setup (imac size, CPU speed, memory amounts, and CPU power saving setting).

To get things rolling, I have a 17" 1.8ghz with 768mb of RAM. My extreme temperature levels are 166 degrees F for the CPU, 141F for the Harddrive, and my "averages" seem to hover around 140-145F for the CPU and 125+/-5F for the HD. I am running the machien at Highest power saving settings pretty much all the time (I don't notice a significant difference in temps or noise when it is set to Automatic).

I notice that the sound of the fans pick up a little noise when I cross the 145F CPU mark and they spin up more when 158-160F CPU is hit. They really spin hard if it stays at about 163+F for more than a minute or so.

Going down in temp the fans don't follow the same pattern. If they are moving hard they will be a little louder untill it gets all the way down to the low 140's.

The hard drive seems to run at a pretty steady temperature, but does scale up and down in about the same pattern as the CPU. Overall, the machine is great except the noise. It is perfectly acceptable when doing "routine" tasks like email, web browser, word processing, and iTunes playback. When I am playing a game, doing any video work or encoding it becomes, in my opinion, unacceptable. If I wanted a computer for just day to day tasks I would have got a mini and a nice LCD, but I wanted the power of a G5 and also a little GPU update from a 9200.

I'm considering returning the iMac and getting a mini and taking some of the extra cash to build a gaming PC later on. I would like to see if the temperatures I am experiencing are typical or if perhaps my excessive noise are due to unusual temps.

Thanks,
Rob
 
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