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Problems with new 2010 Mac Pros?

With a internet forum you will always hear the extremes. Never-the-less I've been in contact with Applecare about the static issue on my graphics card and the audible noise.

In a quite room my machine is quite audible which I find odd when a hotter macbook is much more quiet. Many of you have mentioned that your Mac Pro's are the quietest you've ever heard and this has prompted me to complain, as the noise mine is making is irritating. Both the intake and exhaust fans seem excessively noisy considering that they are running at 600rpm.

It may see petty, but I spent a massive chunk of my wage on this machine... (apart from the issues above, its amazing :))
 
asnozz said:
With a internet forum you will always hear the extremes. Never-the-less I've been in contact with Applecare about the static issue on my graphics card and the audible noise.

In a quite room my machine is quite audible which I find odd when a hotter macbook is much more quiet. Many of you have mentioned that your Mac Pro's are the quietest you've ever heard and this has prompted me to complain, as the noise mine is making is irritating. Both the intake and exhaust fans seem excessively noisy considering that they are running at 600rpm.

It may see petty, but I spent a massive chunk of my wage on this machine... (apart from the issues above, its amazing :))
Click to expand...

What type of static and audible noise are you getting from the graphics card?
 
reel2reel said:
You shouldn't have accepted the shipment if there was a problem. Pretty simple.
Click to expand...

UPS were pretty quick to bugger off. Took me a few minutes after they'd gone to notice things that made me suspicious.

And TBH, I wouldn't have minded if it worked anyway.

I accept that companies like Apple can't help but make lemons every once in a while. I don't think the 2010 mac pros are duds.
 
stix666 said:
UPS were pretty quick to bugger off. Took me a few minutes after they'd gone to notice things that made me suspicious.

And TBH, I wouldn't have minded if it worked anyway.

I accept that companies like Apple can't help but make lemons every once in a while. I don't think the 2010 mac pros are duds.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean about UPS driving away quickly. That is totally true. I've had two different packages damaged at different times and did not notice it until UPS had left, which takes them all of five seconds to do once you sign.
 
Lone Deranger said:
Yeah, the MBP's are virtually silent when idling or doing light work on them.
It's when you start running the heavy stuff that you notice the MBP's fans revving up and becoming noisy. The Mac Pro will remain consistently quiet despite what you throw at it. Very nice. :)


Oh, and no problems here either so far on my dual-hexa core 2.93Ghz with the 5870.
Click to expand...

Are there any GPU's compatible with the 5.1 MP that don't have a fan? Is there a fan control app that I can use to program the GPU fan on a 5770?

TIA
JohnG
 
asnozz said:
With a internet forum you will always hear the extremes. Never-the-less I've been in contact with Applecare about the static issue on my graphics card and the audible noise.

In a quite room my machine is quite audible which I find odd when a hotter macbook is much more quiet. Many of you have mentioned that your Mac Pro's are the quietest you've ever heard and this has prompted me to complain, as the noise mine is making is irritating. Both the intake and exhaust fans seem excessively noisy considering that they are running at 600rpm.

It may see petty, but I spent a massive chunk of my wage on this machine... (apart from the issues above, its amazing :))
Click to expand...

I'm in agreement with your comment: "..........I find it odd when a macbook is much more quiet".

I'm guessing (will check with my sound level meter next week) that my MP with 5770 is ~35dB at 3'. Istat indicates the fans are all running 500-875 RPM.

cheers
JohnG
 
stix666 said:
UPS were pretty quick to bugger off. Took me a few minutes after they'd gone to notice things that made me suspicious.

And TBH, I wouldn't have minded if it worked anyway.

I accept that companies like Apple can't help but make lemons every once in a while. I don't think the 2010 mac pros are duds.
Click to expand...

I see your point. In a perfect world, you'd have time to check. In real-world, they're gone before you can touch the damn thing.
 
johnnymg said:
I'm in agreement with your comment: "..........I find it odd when a macbook is much more quiet".

I'm guessing (will check with my sound level meter next week) that my MP with 5770 is ~35dB at 3'. Istat indicates the fans are all running 500-875 RPM.

cheers
JohnG
Click to expand...

Thanks John. I unfortunately don't have a sound meter, but have downloaded a rudimentary sound metre app off the android marketplace; I'll measure the noise levels 3 inches from my intake/exhaust fans tonight.
 
asnozz said:
Thanks John. I unfortunately don't have a sound meter, but have downloaded a rudimentary sound metre app off the android marketplace; I'll measure the noise levels 3 inches from my intake/exhaust fans tonight.
Click to expand...

Just for fun, maybe try resetting your PRAM? My fans are almost silent.
 
Draeconis said:
Are you suggesting he keep the UPS guy hanging around whilst he unpacks it and turns it on?
Click to expand...

No, I was "suggesting" he look at the box and see the broken seal. But why not try reading all the posts first?

What's it got to do with turning it on?!?!? He's talking about open box. Why is UPS gonna care if the computer isn't working properly??
 
stix666 said:
As mentioned before, they said they would but haven't got back to me. Under the Sale of Goods Act, they are obliged to replace/ accept faulty equipment without charge. So accepting the return without charge is hardly an example of great customer service - it is the minimum I would expect from any vendor.

And I have no desire to buy equipment from a vendor who cannot reassure that products they sell as new have not in fact been tampered with. They are in breach of the Trades Description Act for doing this.

I don't see anything irrational in that
Click to expand...

I think expecting anything more than a replacement is extraordinary. Threatening to buy a hackintosh over this as you did in your last post, seems irrational to me.
 
VirtualRain said:
I think expecting anything more than a replacement is extraordinary. Threatening to buy a hackintosh over this as you did in your last post, seems irrational to me.
Click to expand...

It's not a question of threatening - just that if Apple remain silent on the 'newness' of my £2k purchase, I'm not going be reassured that any further Mac pro purchase won't have the same probs

The whole point of getting a Mac pro (for me) over a hackintosh is to avoid the hassles associated with hackintosh (building system, time, OS updates etc). If the Mac pro at higher cost comes with these problems, and they cannot, or will not account for them, tbh the value question of hackintosh vs mac pro changes for me

Nothing irrational about that. You may be suffering from a failure of imagination if you think there is

This is a criticism of apple's customer service, not their 2010 Mac pros - as someone who put in an order for £3k worth of gear, I expect them to address what happened better than they have so far.
 
stix666 said:
It's not a question of threatening - just that if Apple remain silent on the 'newness' of my £2k purchase, I'm not going be reassured that any further Mac pro purchase won't have the same probs

The whole point of getting a Mac pro (for me) over a hackintosh is to avoid the hassles associated with hackintosh (building system, time, OS updates etc). If the Mac pro at higher cost comes with these problems, and they cannot, or will not account for them, tbh the value question of hackintosh vs mac pro changes for me

Nothing irrational about that. You may be suffering from a failure of imagination if you think there is

This is a criticism of apple's customer service, not their 2010 Mac pros - as someone who put in an order for £3k worth of gear, I expect them to address what happened better than they have so far.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it wasn't opened by Customs or UPS for inspection?
 
reel2reel said:
Are you sure it wasn't opened by Customs or UPS for inspection?
Click to expand...

It may have been. I have asked apple to look into it, and am waiting for them to get back to me. I received the machine around 16 hours after putting the order in which seems real quick. Maybe they're able to do that with base machines (as opposed to special orders)
 
stix666 said:
It may have been. I have asked apple to look into it, and am waiting for them to get back to me. I received the machine around 16 hours after putting the order in which seems real quick. Maybe they're able to do that with base machines (as opposed to special orders)
Click to expand...

Wow, thats quick.
 
for those interested:

50-51dB about 3" from the front of the case/grill (bottom).

56-58dB with the microphone as close to the grill as possible.

How does that compare to yours (anyone)?
 
VideoFreek said:
Virtually identical to my readings.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, good to know.

According to www.everymac.com

"How much noise does the "Mid-2010" Mac Pro make compared to earlier models?

The "Mid-2010" Mac Pro models -- the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.8 (2010/Nehalem) and "Eight Core" 2.4 (2010/Westmere) -- are extremely quiet.

In fact, as part of a longer piece testing the performance of the "Mid-2010" Mac Pro, the always excellent BareFeats documented:

The 2010 6-core and 8-core are in our lab with the Radeon 5870 and 5770 respectively. Our decibel meter only goes down to 40 dB. Below that the LCD screen reads "LOW." On the other hand, the 2009 Mac Pro with the 4870 graphics card registers 46 dB at idle.
That's definitely quiet -- about as quiet as anyone could hope for a desktop computer to be."
 
^^^^
To be a little more precise, I obtained the same readings as you when using C-weighting on my meter, which only goes down to 50 dB. When using A-weighting, my readings were <50. This makes sense, I think, because the main sound I hear from my MP is a fairly low-pitched hum, and A-weighting de-emphasizes lower frequencies.
 
asnozz said:
Thanks for the reply, good to know.

According to www.everymac.com

"How much noise does the "Mid-2010" Mac Pro make compared to earlier models?

The "Mid-2010" Mac Pro models -- the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.8 (2010/Nehalem) and "Eight Core" 2.4 (2010/Westmere) -- are extremely qui
snip.....................
Click to expand...

I'm surprised they described the 2010 as "extremely quiet". Extremely quiet to me would be where you could only hear it within a foot distance. In a smallish (150 sq ft.) quiet room I can hear my 2010 MP with 5770 from ~10' away. Probably depends a bit on how big a room and the background noise level.

FWIW, I would describe the sound level (fans) as low-fairly quiet. The sound is in the lower frequency range as others have reported. It has a slight "rough" sound.

cheers
JohnG
 
You have to remember a HUGE percentage of consumer products are made overseas. Let's see, they are made at the factory, pick your country this month, (don't even think of the out sourcing of other parts brought in) then trucked or railed hundreds? of miles to the port. Shipped over the oceans, then trucked or railed to a warehouse, then trucked or railed to the distributers, then trucked to the consumers. You can't possibly think SOME products won't fail?

I kinda thought most forums were for trouble shooting? I don't remember seeing any, where, everyone was patting each other on the backs because they all had excellent products. The whole Idea of forums are to solve problems I thought. If you go to a forum expect different problems with different products.

In this day and age there is little reason to make a blind purchase any more. If you need it right now, then people take their chances. The rest should be able to learn from their purchases if there are problems when they post them to "forums", and hopefully they also "review" them at the places they buy them from.

As far as "Reviews" on the different web stores, you have to read between the lines. I bet a third of them are just P's and Moaning about how 3 years ago they had a bad product from "that" company. Not one company's has had a perfect record. Some years are worse then others.
I was looking at a laser printer and I had never had one before so I went online to check out the prices and features and then I started to look at the reviews. My god, I looked at ALL the brands and every single batch of reviews had people in there just moaning about this brand being worse then that brand. Probably a quarter of them never even purchased the dang thing but still had to give their "opinion". So read all the reviews before making a decision. The one I got was DOA. It had some of the best reviews. I called directly to the company and went through some trouble shooting and they sent another Brand New one 3 days later.

It all comes down to a "calculated" risk.
 
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