My G5 is a power hog, and my LCD is somewhat of one. I can't plug both into my battery backup or I get warning beeps. That said, my LCD runs way cooler than my CRT.
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My Mac Pro is a fricken SPACE HEATER!
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My G5 is a power hog, and my LCD is somewhat of one. I can't plug both into my battery backup or I get warning beeps. That said, my LCD runs way cooler than my CRT.
It's a funny thing. I recently purchased a dual core 2.0 Ghz G5, the last model before the Mac Pros. It replaced a dual G4 533 Mhz that got decently warm and loud. However, the G5, much to my delight, appears to be miraculously cool. It appears not to be the space heater many others are reporting here.
I have 2.5 GB RAM spread out over 6 DIMMS, and am processesing H.264 video 24 hours a day. Both CPU cores are always at 100% and never go above 120 F, and all fans never spin faster than their idle speed of 500 RPM. The thing is whisper quiet no matter how long or hard I work the CPU's. Am I missing something here?
I have 2.5 GB RAM spread out over 6 DIMMS, and am processesing H.264 video 24 hours a day. Both CPU cores are always at 100% and never go above 120 F, and all fans never spin faster than their idle speed of 500 RPM. The thing is whisper quiet no matter how long or hard I work the CPU's. Am I missing something here?
Probably less heat on average than my home server.
All of your Mac Pros probably generate less heat, on average, than my home server.
It's a Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (a dual-core Pentium 4 core processor with Hyperthreading, nominally 3.73 GHz,) overclocked to 4.0 GHz that runs distributed computing 24/7. That bad boy probably draws a continuous 150 W all by itself. (Well, you 8-core Mac Pro users are probably using more.) It also has a few relatively ancient 10,000 RPM and 15,000 RPM SCSI drives in it that are absolute beasts (two 9 GB and two 18 GB.) I really should just replace them with a new ATA drive, even a low-end one would have more capacity, almost guaranteed be faster, and use a LOT less power. (The Western Digital Caviar "GreenPower" looks pretty nice.) Swap in a Core 2 Duo E6420, too, and I'd get better distributed computing performance at half the power draw.
All of your Mac Pros probably generate less heat, on average, than my home server.
It's a Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (a dual-core Pentium 4 core processor with Hyperthreading, nominally 3.73 GHz,) overclocked to 4.0 GHz that runs distributed computing 24/7. That bad boy probably draws a continuous 150 W all by itself. (Well, you 8-core Mac Pro users are probably using more.) It also has a few relatively ancient 10,000 RPM and 15,000 RPM SCSI drives in it that are absolute beasts (two 9 GB and two 18 GB.) I really should just replace them with a new ATA drive, even a low-end one would have more capacity, almost guaranteed be faster, and use a LOT less power. (The Western Digital Caviar "GreenPower" looks pretty nice.) Swap in a Core 2 Duo E6420, too, and I'd get better distributed computing performance at half the power draw.
Yeah, those upgrades would pay for themselves in about 2-3 months worth of electric bills!
Also, and this is my Portland-green side, but are you by any chance signed up for a renewable power program? If you're using that much electricity, you may want to look into it; being green ain't just for dirty, stinky hippies anymore.
Also, and this is my Portland-green side, but are you by any chance signed up for a renewable power program? If you're using that much electricity, you may want to look into it; being green ain't just for dirty, stinky hippies anymore.
Yeah, those upgrades would pay for themselves in about 2-3 months worth of electric bills!
Also, and this is my Portland-green side, but are you by any chance signed up for a renewable power program? If you're using that much electricity, you may want to look into it; being green ain't just for dirty, stinky hippies anymore.
But I am a dirty, stinky hippie!
Are you using the factory or recommended DIMM's with the heat sinks? If not, your Mac will generate a lot more heat and the fans will run more.
How many HD's are in your unit?
How many HD's are in your unit?
I had 2 21" Lacies before, and honestly,I dont remember them seething heat..
Now I have a 30" acd and you can feel it clearly warm your face .
Especially with contact lenses and longer workdays,the damn lenses start to dry out..
Used to have at my work in one room 1 Macpro, 2 G5s, 2 G4s and 3 laptops,10 external drives and 4 displays. Most of them was running at the same time.
You could definately feel the heat if you kept the door closed..
I wonder how many watts I had running at the most.
If Al Gore were dead,he´d be spinning in his grave like a merry-go-around.
That's actually a misconception. Plasmas run hotter than an equal-size LCD, but not very much in real-world applications. It depends on what you're looking at. An LCD will use a lot less power on a white screen than it will with a dark screen. This is because LCDs are using power to block out the backlighting. Plasmas use power to light pixels, so black pixels use less energy. If you watch stuff that's generally darker than 50%, plasmas use a lot less energy than their manufacturer's specs would seem to indicate. Head over the the AVSForum website and do a search on plasma power usage. People have hooked their displays up to power-measuring devices such as a Kill A Watt to see how much power they actually draw from the grid in real-life viewing applications. The results are not what you might expect.
OK, i found a nice test done by the Tech TV Call for Help people:
http://www.g4techtv.ca/callforhelp/shownotes/0283.shtml?regular
You'll see that LCDs are almost a constant draw, and plasmas vary wildly depending on content. Also, a calibrated plasma (professionally calibrated to look good, not to be as bright as possible) will use a lot less power than one at default settings, because manufacturers typically pump the brightness and contrast defaults beyond where they should be so they will get more attention in a showroom.
Sorry, just had to address a big misconception.
back to the mac pro heater discussion!
With a CRT, all the heat comes out the back/top. With an LCD, it generally radiates all directions at once, so you actually notice it coming out the front.
My iMac will gently warm my room up (12 x 11ft i think) over the course of the day, but leaving the window open a few inches will level it out.
Both iterations of my PC would make the room the heat up by a ridiculous amount.
The original spec was Athlon 2000 XP+ 2GB RAM, 3 hard drives, 2 fans, average temp, system: 60c, cpu: 75c
Current spec is Pentium D 2.67ghz 1.5GB RAM, 2 hard drives, Radeon 9200SE? 4 fans. average temp, system: 40c, cpu 50c
The extra fans helped, but it was still a nightmare during summer...
Anyway, enough rambling about PC's
have you tried SMC Fan Control?
its a little app where you can set the minimum fan speeds to however high you want them too, helps reduce temperatures if you don't mind a little extra fan noise, I ahve mine all set at 1400rpm minimum.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049
Both iterations of my PC would make the room the heat up by a ridiculous amount.
The original spec was Athlon 2000 XP+ 2GB RAM, 3 hard drives, 2 fans, average temp, system: 60c, cpu: 75c
Current spec is Pentium D 2.67ghz 1.5GB RAM, 2 hard drives, Radeon 9200SE? 4 fans. average temp, system: 40c, cpu 50c
The extra fans helped, but it was still a nightmare during summer...
Anyway, enough rambling about PC's
have you tried SMC Fan Control?
its a little app where you can set the minimum fan speeds to however high you want them too, helps reduce temperatures if you don't mind a little extra fan noise, I ahve mine all set at 1400rpm minimum.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049