Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
actually it's the residue of the cleaning agents (used to clean the motherboard) evaporating.

a few days isn't bad, but you really should open a window if possible and use a fan to move the air around. It's not good to keep breathing that :(

Edit : some of you already nailed it!

Yes, it can be quite overpowering but I never found it as bad as some have made out. Windows are always normally always open. :)
At times it almost reminds me of marker pens, except not as strong.
 
"....smells like...............victory".


ApocalypseNow.jpg
 
I thought i was the only one

Hi All,

Seems this is a common smell , i was scared someone stashed some pot in my mac, since i bought it second hand. Never found it though, ;)

ahh, so just some good ventilation , that's good with me.
 
I've been caught sniffing the Mac a few times.

:mad: Thanks a lot, guys. My wife walked into my office and caught me sniffing the back of my MBP. She gave me a strange look and walked out of the room...

When I first got my PowerBook, I was at the Dalhousie University library (one of them anyway) and the first thing I did was stick my nose in the back vents and breathe in DEEP. People looked at me weird, but I didn't care.

I still smell new Macs whenever I have a chance. I'm not shy about it.
 
I believe they make it by wringing the sweat out of Steve Job's black turtleneck tops and mixing it with Jonathan Ive's hair follicles. I could be wrong though, it might just be new plastic.

You are wrong. Jobs wears mock turtlenecks.

i love that smell to death.

You sure do, read this:

That "New Car Smell" is actually plastic fumes leeching from newly formed materials into the air. It is mildly toxic, and potentially cancerous.
 
Hello,

I just got a new Mac Pro 3.0 exactly 7 days ago, which has smelled up the room since the day I turned it on. I also got a new freezer in the room the same day so I thought it was the freezer but I started smelling around the room and it seems the smell is coming from the vents on the front of the Mac Pro case. It is quite a smell ! Smells like a skunk.

Has anyone contacted Apple Care Support about this and if so what did they say? I'd rather not send my new Mac Pro back to them but quite honestly I have never had a piece of computing gear smell like this ever... this is far from new car smell.


~Rainman1976

Rainman, I have been describing the same exact smell. i have pinpointed it down to my new macpr0 2.66. It is a sweet skunky smell and is driving me nuts. In no way is it a pleasant smell, unless you have a thing for skunks. I saw on another board the name and number for an apple care guy that is supposedly very helpful.

His name is Justin. His no. is (800) 275-2273 (Apple Care). Hit 89 and his extension is 41412. He's a real helpful tech.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61705&page=2


I am going to try calling tomorrow and see what he has to say about this. this can't be a healthy smell.
 
Identical smelling car identified

I swear it smells different when running bootcamp!

Running windows it smells somewhat Fisherprice plastic like. Rebooting OSX slowly respawns this (new) Delorean like scent. I love it!
 
Rainman, I have been describing the same exact smell. i have pinpointed it down to my new macpr0 2.66. It is a sweet skunky smell and is driving me nuts. In no way is it a pleasant smell, unless you have a thing for skunks. I saw on another board the name and number for an apple care guy that is supposedly very helpful.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61705&page=2


I am going to try calling tomorrow and see what he has to say about this. this can't be a healthy smell.

Actually Justin is gone. The new contact is JJ. Same number 800-275-2273 (Apple Care) Hit 89 than ext. 40400.
 
Didn't you know? It's

Quad Memory Chanel N°5

often just referred to as

Stevel N°5

It's the official perfume of the Mac Gay Pride movement. They separate themselves from the geeky UNIseX gay movement by looking and scenting better.
 
just go to an apple store after new machines/new products are set up..then the whole store smells like that!

actually all apple stores do..no matter what..they release it in the air
 
This dilemma reminds me of the smell some iBook G3 (white) owners were reporting coming off from their machine.
 
I would imagine people would complain more if it smelled like farts.

Well, let's consider this for a moment.... It is fairly common knowledge that a fart's aroma is most appealing to it's creator (i.e. nothing smells finer than your own brand). So, if you own a Mac Pro it is YOUR machine. Therefore, if it were in fact emanating a flatulent odor, wouldn't the smell be appealing since it is your own brand by way of ownership??


:p:p Yeah.... things are really getting this desperate in the MP forum. LOL :D
 
Well, let's consider this for a moment.... It is fairly common knowledge that a fart's aroma is most appealing to it's creator (i.e. nothing smells finer than your own brand). So, if you own a Mac Pro it is YOUR machine. Therefore, if it were in fact emanating a flatulent odor, wouldn't the smell be appealing since it is your own brand by way of ownership??


:p:p Yeah.... things are really getting this desperate in the MP forum. LOL :D

Thats friggin gross. Cannot believe you typed that. All these images. I can now see why it killed the topic.
 
Strong smell — almost a month now

OK, this is beginning to drive me crazy. How long should I expect My Dual Xenon to smell? (It smells exactly like skunk).
 
OK, this is beginning to drive me crazy. How long should I expect My Dual Xenon to smell? (It smells exactly like skunk).

You know, my system never did smell.

You can see my specs below my post in my signature.

But, perhaps I can offer a bit of a reason why some may smell and others don't.

First, my Mac Pro was assembled and built in the California facility in the United States. It was then shipped to me (also in the United States). So, that is my initial guess as to why it may not smell.

Now, that may initially sound a bit prejudiced. But, it's actually based on an observation going over many, many, many years.

I spent a good portion of my working life as a licensed OEM and System Builder. And, as such, I handled a lot of individual computer components. And, I found that each originating country came with it's own unique smell.

For example, upon opening the factory packaging of a main board from Taiwan, I would get hit with an extremely strong odor. But, opening a main board from a company here in the United States (of which there were only a few left at the time) would have little or no smell. Parts from China carried a different smell yet, as did stuff from Hong Kong, and other countries of origin.

I actually used to try and guess the origin of a part based on it's smell when I opened the box. After making a prediction, I'd look at the label on the component to see if I'd guess right.

I usually put the systems through a week long burn-in and testing process before I would deliver them to the end-users.

And, usually by the second day of their burn-in testing, they would no longer smell.

The components which usually carried the strongest smell were usually main boards and power supplies. The main boards I used rarely came with CPU's. I ordered my stuff direct and separate. So, Main boards, CPU's, heat sinks, and so on were all delivered in separate boxes. So, the smell was obviously not the heat-sink compound (as non was present yet).

As for why the parts from different countries smelled differently, well that's anyone's guess. I wouldn't suggest that it was due to the people building them, that'd just be wrong :eek:

But, a few ideas come to mind. One, since I'm in the United States, perhaps I'm more accustomed to the general smell of our environment and don't notice similar smells as much. Perhaps the packaging traps a bit of the environmental air / smell into the package and it remains for a few days after opening. That's not entirely unreasonable in industrialized areas. There's a larger town 50 miles away from me, and any time we visit there my daughter asks what's that smell. I tell her it's just the way that town smells. It's environmental.

Perhaps if someone in Taiwan received a package from us, it would smell different to them as well. They're going to be more accustomed to the smell of their environment. So, our scent would seem different.

The other thought, is perhaps it's just due to the unique chemicals used in their manufacturing process. Perhaps they use a chemical more common in their area to do the final "wash" of the components after they are manufactured. And, perhaps China and Taiwan and the United States, and other countries all have slightly different chemicals that we use to do our final "wash" before packaging. So, that could account for a difference in smell.

Almost any new item you could purchase will have a smell though. Wood products, electronics, cars, homes, etc.

In a car, it's all the hazardous chemicals bleeding off that produces that new car smell. It's glues, rubber compounds, and other adhesives and chemicals bleeding off that produces that smell. And, actually makes the cars a health hazard for a few weeks or months until it finishes bleeding off. Fortunately, I've never heard of anyone dying of new car smell :D

I looked at a new manufactured home once, and remember seeing the warning label cautioning that it will bleed off ammonia into the air. And, cautioning of the health hazard that it would pose.

*** EDIT ***
I just remembered, it wasn't ammonia that it was warning about. It was that it would produce Formaldehyde in the air within the home. Yikes.

*** end edit ***

New lumber shipping to the United States from China contains a glue chemical that is banned in China for their own use. But, it's permitted for exports. So, that produces an aroma.

In the end, I think the smells all just depend on what the item is, and where it was made.

Of course, there are some smells that are going to be due to a defect such as melting plastic, and so on. Obviously, those should be dealt with.
 
Is it not the smell of the oil in the power supply transformer? I'm going to guess its that smell.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.