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Macbook Fan

N

newbie11

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
6
0
Hi All,
I was just wondering if your macbook Aluminum fans are audible when in a very quite room. Is there a slight humming or are they absolutely dead silent? I can hear my fans a little kind of like a quiet wooosh. I heard the blackbooks had absolutely no noise. or is it just my laptop?
Can you hear the fans quite well if your put your ear say 5 inches from the keyboard, or are you guys hearing nothing at all?
Thanks.
Newbie11.
 
newbie11 said:
Hi All,
I was just wondering if your macbook Aluminum fans are audible when in a very quite room. Is there a slight humming or are they absolutely dead silent? I can hear my fans a little kind of like a quiet wooosh. I heard the blackbooks had absolutely no noise. or is it just my laptop?
Can you hear the fans quite well if your put your ear say 5 inches from the keyboard, or are you guys hearing nothing at all?
Thanks.
Newbie11.
Click to expand...

Do a search on the forums.. It may not be your Fan. If the sound is coming from the bottom right side of the MB then it's the HDD, which is normal on these Alu MB's. If it comes form the top left/center, then it's the fan. But usually, you can't hear the fans unless you're doing something CPU intensive, so it is likely that the sound you're hearing is coming from the HDD.
 
My Aluminum MacBook is the same way, I can hear the fans slightly at all times. My Old blackbook was completely silent until I started doing something cpu intensive. I took my new one to the genius bar to ask if the fan sound was normal and they said yes.
 
MacGuy84 said:
My Aluminum MacBook is the same way, I can hear the fans slightly at all times. My Old blackbook was completely silent until I started doing something cpu intensive. I took my new one to the genius bar to ask if the fan sound was normal and they said yes.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's the fans? Again, if it comes from the bottom right, it's the HDD. There is only ONE fan in the MB, and you shouldn't be able to hear any noise from it unless the RPMs climb over 2500.. That's about where I can start hearing mine..
 
yea I think that I am hearing a slight combination of both HD and fan.The hard drive sounds a little louder than the fan. Is this normal? There is also a slight, very slight vibration from the hard drive I think. Maybe not though, maybe I just have twitchy hands haha. Do other's feel and hear this? Also, can others actually hear the fan, or is it absolutely dead silent? It's still very quiet compared to my last computer.
Thanks guys.
Newbie11.
 
newbie11 said:
yea I think that I am hearing a slight combination of both HD and fan.The hard drive sounds a little louder than the fan. Is this normal? There is also a slight, very slight vibration from the hard drive I think. Maybe not though, maybe I just have twitchy hands haha. Do other's feel and hear this? Also, can others actually hear the fan, or is it absolutely dead silent? It's still very quiet compared to my last computer.
Thanks guys.
Newbie11.
Click to expand...

Download iStat Pro and see what the RPMs of the fan are.. If they are normal, then you might have a faulty fan. My first Alu had that issue and I got it replaced.
Have you installed the new updates? If not, go to Software Update from your menu and install them.. they will only show up one at a time.
 
newbie11 said:
Hi All,
I was just wondering if your macbook Aluminum fans are audible when in a very quite room. Is there a slight humming or are they absolutely dead silent? I can hear my fans a little kind of like a quiet wooosh. I heard the blackbooks had absolutely no noise. or is it just my laptop?
Can you hear the fans quite well if your put your ear say 5 inches from the keyboard, or are you guys hearing nothing at all?
Thanks.
Newbie11.
Click to expand...

Just performed the test for you. In a very quiet room, with my ear 5 inches away from the left side of the keyboard I can hear the high frequency processor whine (it stutters like morse code) from the CPU switching power saving states. I can also hear the constant steady rotational spin of the fan. I cannot hear the hard drive at all since those two noises dominate on that side of the keyboard.

If I move to the right side of the keyboard, with my ear 5 inches away I can hear the very subtle and gentle low frequency character of the hard drive. I can also hear the resonance from the processor whine as it echoes across the aluminum chassis. Those two sounds dominate on the right side, so I can't hear the rotational spin of the fan from that side.

Placing my hands on the palm rests and all over the machine there is absolutely no vibrations caused by the hard drive, even while writing or reading. I have a 2.0 Macbook Aluminum though. I notice that more of the 2.4 owners, but not all of them, have mentioned vibrations from their larger hard drives.

When I move my head back to a normal viewing distance from the screen, which is more than a foot from the keyboard, all the sounds are too faint to be heard and this machine becomes the quietest, most peaceful computer I've ever owned.

I have built many silent pc machines before so silence is very important to me. If this is typical of the silence of these machines then color me very impressed. Good job Apple!
 
Thank you very much for trying it out. I think I basically have the same thing going on as you.... nothing.... haha. I did get Istat and my fans are around 2000 rpms, which I guess it normal. When I flipped the computer over and took the plate off to look at the hard drive I noticed something. The harddrive isn't put in absolutely solidly. If I put two fingers on it and gently push side to side, it kind of moves maybe 2 mm. But, I think that this may be intentional. Is it made to have a little leeway? Check it out. Do others have this? Thanks! Also, I want to say, I love my Macbook! This is by far the best computer I have ever owned, and that's probably why I'm looking into every aspect of it. But I think after this, I'm going to stop that, and just enjoy it!
Newbie11.
 
Macbook fans

How do macbook fans work? If macbook aluminum is unibody, it doesn't have escape route for hot air.
Also why are apple's fans are so ineffective, I read stories told by people that had their pants burned by macbook. Obviously I realize that idiot can ignore the fact that his legs are scorching hot, but 100C is max that dual core can reach right?
 
Im waiting for a fan replacement, been nrlly 2 weeks now too, getting a little bored of the noise,

its ok when im not loading the cpu, 2k rpm, except when i tip the mb to one side or the other, you can hear the fan blades rubbing on the edge of the fan guard,

when im loading up the cpu/gpu's 6k rpm on the fan the griding can get quite unbareable and it sound like the unibody is still being milled!

Apple have phoned me twice in this time apologising for the delays as they are having difficulty in obtaining, which currently is ok, but the fan does sound like it could just fail at any moment and if it fails i have a big problem.
 
janat said:
How do macbook fans work? If macbook aluminum is unibody, it doesn't have escape route for hot air.
Also why are apple's fans are so ineffective, I read stories told by people that had their pants burned by macbook. Obviously I realize that idiot can ignore the fact that his legs are scorching hot, but 100C is max that dual core can reach right?
Click to expand...

There's a giant wide hole in the body between keyboard and display through which hot air escapes the computer. Cold air is sucked in through the holes under the keyboard keys.

Apple's cooling system is great, considering you are using a less-than-1"thin laptop with 2.0GHz+ Core 2 Duo.
 
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