My first Mac: the wait is over

[wiseguy27]

The wait is finally over. I got my first Mac (a 2.3GHz Power Mac) on Monday afternoon (it's after midnight, early morning as I write this). FedEx did deliver it without screwing it up.

Setup was a breeze, including Airport setup with my existing Belkin wireless router. Initially it didn't find the network and I realized I hadn't plugged in the antenna.

So far things look good (except for one seemingly minor glitch in updating to 10.4.1) and I have started picking up quite a bit on the usage part (I do have the missing manual series of books handy). Of course, this post is coming from the new Mac.

Trying out stuff was exciting - it was a string of "cool", "wow", "neat"...

I downloaded and installed some applications that I need (and thought I would need), including, but not restricted to, QuickSilver (recommended by MR members), Firefox (since I'm used to it on Windows) and Camino (since I wanted to check out how a native OS X browser could compare with the rest of them). Some more apps are "on the way".

A couple of things I noticed:
* The Power Mac gets really hot at the back (where the fans and outlets are)
* Whenever *any* seemingly normal drawing work is done on the display, there is a slightly shrill noise (very subtle though) - this happens even while moving windows or launching anything that does some amount of display rendering (no, scrolling through text doesn't count). Wonder if it's the GPU fan suddenly accelerating. It also seems like this noise may disappear with time.

 

[Zman5225]

Hey congrats on your new purchase! I've been lurking these forums for a while, so I thought i'd join up and say grats. I'm looking to join the Mac era as well and join the fun. Anyways, good luck on your new Mac.

_Z

 

[altair]

I think everyone gets that crazzy ass noise occasionally. I heard that it had to do something with secure websites, but dont really know. I just turn up my music, or usually the jet turbine on my tibook drowns it out.

Welcome to the real world, glad you got unplugged from the matrix =)

 

[FireArse]

Funny noise when moving windows

Hey, I have a Rev. B Dual 2GHz with the ATi 9600 - I get that same high frequency sound when I'm moving windows too. Its not too bad - but its does make me wonder at times.

I also get a sound when I'm transferring large files across the 1Gb Ethernet Network I have setup here - its roughly the same sound as moving windows. Still unsure about what that was. The machine has locked up once in 3months AND the Hardware Test came out all good - so I have paid no attention to either of the weird sounds. Anybody with ideas of what is going on? I have applecare - so might give them a ring if i can be arsed - or if I start loosing packets or something of that nature.

Weird sounds.

Meh.

FireArse

 

[Kerry Sanders]

Congratulations! I got my first Mac last week (dual 2.0 PM w/ 20" ACD). I am loving it.

As for heat, I noticed the stagnant heat around the back side of my system. It is pulling a lot of warm air out of the system. That is a good thing and I am glad to see that considering there are around 9 fans internally on the PM.

As for sounds, I hear a weird click every once in a while. I am not sure what it is though.

 

[wiseguy27]

Welcome to the real world, glad you got unplugged from the matrix =)

Heheh, I doubt if I was in the matrix before...but then, how would I know? Isn't it the very basis of existence of the matrix that one doesn't realize it?

Well, I did (and do) have higher expectations from the Mac, but I never assumed that it would be fairy land - there are bound to be issues with huge platforms like the Mac and PCs (Windows or Linux). So this wasn't something that shattered me. I'm keeping my expectations "balanced" (for want of a better word).