Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Noisey RevA iMac G5's...

mrgreen4242

mrgreen4242

macrumors 601
Original poster
Feb 10, 2004
4,377
9
Has anyone ever received satisfaction from Apple about their loud RevA iMac G5? Mine was pretty loud before, and I just got it back from a warranty replacement of the Logic Board (bulging/bursting capacitors), and now it's even worse.

I complained right when I got the computer, and AppleCare was pretty unhelpful about it. They basically said that we are aware of the issue and don't have a solution for it.

These computers where very clearly advertised as whisper quiet. It was one of the reasons I bought one. Mine sounds like a vacuum cleaner if I do anything CPU or GPU intensive, like play a game or even convert a file in iTunes.

I'm going to call in and start complaining about this on Monday, but I was just wondering if anyone has ever received any kind of solution from Apple?
 
Buzzing iMac

I can't believe my luck with Apple.

I had to go through three 15" PowerBooks before getting one that worked (first bad pixels, distorted sound, second huge dent in screen panel straight out of the box, third fine) and now having bought a 17" iMac on Saturday I've discovered that I am one of the "lucky" ones with a noisy, model airplane buzzy iMac.

Basically there is a constant buzzing sound coming from the lower left side, that rises and falls in tone dependent on what you're doing. Any activity such as opening an app will make the unit sound like its taking-off. This is a separate sound to the fans activating, which sounds like air rushing through and is fine.

Also I checked the brightness trick (ie if the sound rises and falls when adjusting brightness its likely a dodgy psu apparantly ) and there is no change and I ran a hardware test which revealed nothing, so I'm assuming its the enclosed fan in that corner of the unit thats buzzing away.

So I'm taking the unit back to the Regent Street store on Monday night to get it replaced and hopefully get one thats as "whisper quiet" as other users, the units on display in the store and Apple themselves claim it to be.

Have to say though that after the PowerBook issues to get another faulty piece of hardware on my very next purchase is pretty depressing.

Vanilla
 
So just in case anyone is interested, I took the 17" iMac in today to the Regent Street store and had absolutely no problem from them. In the end I decided to swap it for a 20" iMac instead, which is what I am writing this on. So far no buzzing noise, no dead pixels, a really nice machine.
I read that the buzzing noise was prevalent on 17" iMacs so maybe my experience is validating that theory.
This screen is fricken awesome.
Vanilla
 
I think the sound/heating problems have ended on the new models.

My revA is in the shop now (for the first time), fan never goes below 5600, temperature rises to the point where it goes to sleep. Hopefully things will work out.
 
snkTab said:
I think the sound/heating problems have ended on the new models.

My revA is in the shop now (for the first time), fan never goes below 5600, temperature rises to the point where it goes to sleep. Hopefully things will work out.
Click to expand...

mines not that bad... at 'idle' my cpu fan stays around 2600-2700, which is pretty loud. It immediately spikes up to the 4000-4600 range if I do anything taxing what-so-ever. For example, opening the dashboard spikes me up to 3000-3100 right away. it's really annoying. If I can't get any resolution from Apple I am going to just get a RevB mini whenever they come out...
 
My Rev A 1.8 GHz 20" iMac G5 is also quite loud. When I first got it about 2 months ago, it was pretty quiet. I hardly ever heard it run, even when doing something processor intensive. Now the fans are always spinning much faster than they were when I got it. Its a little disappointing. I love the speed it has and the screen is just absolutely beautiful, but the noise is enough the ruin it. I'm considering selling it for a 17" PowerBook. I may lose a little performance, but if a 17" PowerBook is quieter, then to me, its well worth it. I don't do many processor intensive things anyways.

The Rev B iMacs seem to have this problem fixed, even though it has a faster processor, faster graphics card, faster optical drive, and faster FSB. This all creates more heat, yet I don't hear a lot of problems about the noise like I do the Rev A iMacs.

BTW...is there a utility that I can view my fan speeds? Is it in the terminal?
 
I think I'm going to take my imac in tomorrow. It was in the shop getting a new logic board, I picked it up last Monday and it's been a week and the fans are driving me crazy. Before I took it in it was very quiet, the fans would only rev up when I was burning a cd or had a bunch of programs open. Then it would tone back down. Now though as soon as the computer gets booted up they run at around 5000 rpm on average....it doesn't even stop when the display turns off and I'm not using it.

What do you guys think my options are? I hate for this to continue because it's pretty unbearable to sit at the computer unless I have some loud music on. I'm assuming I should go ahead an purchase the apple care now...I was going to wait till my year was nearly up, hoping I wouldn't need it.

mklos, I use X resource graph to measure temparature, speeds, etc.

thanks,

allison.
 
Has anyone with a noise problem taken it in and had it repaired? Also, will this caues the computer to 'burn out'?


thanks,

allison.
 
runninmac said:
So im taking it you have a 50/50 chance to get a "defective" iMac?
Click to expand...

Well, given my experience with purchasing a 15"PB and now an iMac the answer appears to be "yes", though I'm sure that if you did a comprehensive count of total units sold versus those returned the actual percentage would be somewhat smaller ;-)

It's frustrating as hell, but the two saving graces for me are a/ the machines themselves and OSX are worth the hassle and b/the two stores I have used to purchase the machines have always been very good about exchanges.

To be frank its because of my own experience and after reading others that I have avoided purchasing online from Apple, much preferring being able to meet with someone physically in the event of a problem.

Still, after reading the follow-on postings it seems I need to review this new 20" iMac after a week or so of constant use before I can start to completely relax, but so far its a very nice, quiet, fast machine.

Vanilla
 
I took mine in today - they said it definitely should not be noisier than it was before everything started to go bad.

Hopefully this time it will work right - I believe they're going to replace the midplane again and then run it a few hours to check the fans before they give me a call.

I really really hope this works! If it doesn't get quieter this time do you think they'd replace the machine?


allison.
 
Well I had another problem a few weeks ago (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/130384/).

I took it into the Apple Store in Indianapolis again this morning and they're going to do a replace & repair (I think that's what he called it). He said I will have it back by the end of the week, that this behavior was not normal. We didn't even turn it on in the store, I just explained the problem and the genius said it would be fixed.


allison.
 
My 5 day old iMac only gets a little loud when doing processor intensive stuff like burning a DVD or encoding video. Sometimes when I open programs or dashboard it does as well, but ends very quickly. I don't mind this at all coming from my PowerBook that would sound like a hairdryer all the time. I would say that 99% of the time I can't hear a thing from the iMac unless I put my ear right up to it. Maybe mine is not as quiet as it should be, but I am more then happy with it.
 
Well 6 days old and still fine.

I've now taped a six-port firewire hub to the back of the stand to permanently hook-up my LaCie Drive, iSight, iPod base and spare cable for my CamCorder. I've also added an Apple BT Keyboard and Mouse.

I've also added an extra 1GB Ram purchased from crucial (very fast service, got it next day) to make 1.5GB in total.

I've played around with FCE2, used Photoshop, Dreamweaver and InDesign and setup my wife with her own profile (the fast user switching is cool), which she uses to track her online store. I can honestly say that I havent noticed the fans at all and the buzzing sound that was so prevalent on the 17" I returned thankfully remains absent.

So far its handled everything I've thrown at it with quiet aplomb and I'm a very happy bunny. I'll next be adding some creature speakers I think when funds allow.

My only issue so far is the apparant impossibility of easily sharing iPhoto pictures and iTunes between two users on the same machine. If anyone has any ideas I'd be very grateful.
Vanilla
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back