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On my 3rd iMac 27" within two weeks, and it's still broken!...

A

Anastacio

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 18, 2010
190
0
Denmark
As some of you have seen, I bought my first iMac some time ago, and seeing as it is brand new, I find it distracting, that it is loud. I can hear the fan constantly, the Hard Drive is at 1098rpm-1101rpm all the time. The Optical Drive is at 999rpm, while the CPU fan is at 938rpm.

Should I lower them? Will it damage anything? Anything else I can do?
 
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Anastacio said:
As some of you have seen, I bought my first iMac some time ago, and seeing as it is brand new, I find it distracting, that it is loud. I can hear the fan constantly, the Hard Drive is at 1098rpm-1101rpm all the time. The Optical Drive is at 999rpm, while the CPU fan is at 938rpm.

Should I lower them? Will it damage anything? Anything else I can do?
Click to expand...
No idea what a respectable RPM reading is on the new iMacs, but I can tell you that I have a 2011 sitting in front of me and I've never heard the fans. All I can hear is some hard disk access, even while gaming, batch Photoshop, etc.
 
From your RPM data, everything seems normal. i have similar RPM and getting crazy because of its awkward silence.

Saying you can hear annoying fan noise I'd say your hearing is super sensitive, or my hearing is getting worse :D... Be sure to watch hardware temps with iStat though.

I wouldn't recommend to lower RPM fans than standard. Increasing, with pleasure .. but lowering ... hell no, I don't want the internal fried.
 
I have one of the new iMacs too, and I have to really concentrate to hear the fans/hdd. Compared to my old Windows desktop (which, despite being a great machine, and very fast, always sounded like a 737 taking off!) it's a delight.
 
Apple's site says that the iMac's idle at about 18 dbA (varying a little with configuration) and your fans are near their lowest. 18 dbA is very quiet. You could try reducing the fan speed with an app like smcFanControl (although it may not let you decrease it very far) for a short period of time just to check if it is indeed the fans that are making the noise. Or, perhaps increase the fan speed to see if the noise gets louder.

Is it possible the sound is your hard drive? Some iMac's ship with a particularly loud hard drive. You could also try changing the surface, too.
 
I can hear the hard drive occasionally, which is normal, when it reads. But then there's this constant sound of bzzzzzz, probably a loud hard drive. I'll try changing the surface.

Just sad paying $2,500 for something, that both distracts me with its sound and dust beneath the glass panel. =(

Under CPU it says 'idle: 100%' as well.
 
The sound you hear is probably the same sound that I am hearing constantly : loud hard drive spinning. Hurry up if you want to change your iMac because once the 14 days are over (at least in my country), they refused to change my hard drive because it is working perfectly (it's just noisy but it works).
 
And now I created a thread anyway, can someone tell me, why my iMac is real slow when awakening it from sleep - even if it's just the screen I have turned off.

The rainbow cursor is on all the time and it's loading, mostly in Safari. The only apps I have open is Reeder, Pages, Safari, Mail and sometimes Calendar, iTunes and a Messenger.

Should that really slow it down after awakening it?
 
I bought the 2011 iMac, which is my first Mac ever. And I really, REALLY have to concentrate if I want to be able to hear the fans or HDD.
If I turn on my old PC, it sounds like a damn vacuum cleaner.

Since you seem to have problems with it waking up too , their might be something wrong with your machine.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
 
I'm preparing to take it in to either get it exchanged or get a refund tomorrow.

How do I do a clean install? Just put in the disc and restart the iMac?
 
Anastacio said:
I'm preparing to take it in to either get it exchanged or get a refund tomorrow.

How do I do a clean install? Just put in the disc and restart the iMac?
Click to expand...

Yeah put the install disk in and hold C while it restarts, should be able to do a clean install from there. Honestly looking at your RPM you shouldn't hear ANYTHING, I mean before I messed with mine on my MacBook Pro it was at 1500 base with no sound at all. and with it now at a 3500 rpm base I can hear it but its not THAT loud, so my guess is a clean install could fix your issues but I have more inclination to believe theres something up with the hard drive, or the fans, or possibly both.
 
So I exchanged the iMac today and this new one is worse, it got MARKS underneath the glaspanel... Christ sake, this is my 3rd iMac 27"! =(
 
What do you mean with a user error?

I haven't done anything else, that put the iMac on my desk, and noticing it got marks/scratches beneath the glaspanel... how can that be my fault?
 
Anastacio said:
As some of you have seen, I bought my first iMac some time ago, and seeing as it is brand new, I find it distracting, that it is loud. I can hear the fan constantly, the Hard Drive is at 1098rpm-1101rpm all the time. The Optical Drive is at 999rpm, while the CPU fan is at 938rpm.

Should I lower them? Will it damage anything? Anything else I can do?
Click to expand...

Your fan speeds seem totally in line with what I'd expect of the 2011 iMacs and you shouldn't lower them below their default lowest speeds. For your reference mine are as follows when idle:

Optical Drive - 1148
Hard Drive - 1115
CPU - 938

Initially I thought the optical drive fan seemed a little fast compared to my 2009 iMac, however I can't really hear it so I'm not worried. I also have the Seagate 2TB drive which is extremely quiet

Don't know what you define as noisy but obviously the iMac is never going to be totally silent as there are mechanical elements in it's make-up. Maybe you' had a loose fan or something in your first iMac that was causing noise? The possibility that something is resonating with your desk is worth investigating - have you set the iMacs up on another surface to check that's not an issue? Now that you've had three iMacs how's how have they been in respect of noise?
 
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Wood (not solid that is) table and an half empty room with nothing on the walls just like I have, will make you hear the fans more.
As well as the sound from the vibrations going down into the desk.
 
I have a 2011 with HDD and SSD and the noisiest part is the HDD. If I turn it off by ejecting it the iMac becomes much quieter, so if you want really quiet you should get one with an SSD, preferably just an SSD if you want really really quiet. The HDD is the noisiest of the moving parts in the iMac IMO, even when they are not being accessed they are kept spinning.
 
sorry to hear. Mine came about 10 days ago. A refurb 27in i7. She is super quiet. No dead pixels, no yellow tint screen. It is perfect. I feel lucky. Hope you sort things out with yours.
 
Only time I hear anything is when I am ripping movies and the fans come on to cool it down. That is to be expected.

Sent from my HTC ThunderBolt using Tapatalk
 
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