Retina iMac fan noise while idle

[blackwoof]

Hi,

I have the basic configuration iMac Retina, and there is audible fan noise even I didn't do anything on iMac.

The fan noise is like slightly hum. smc fan control shows my fan speed is 1200, which is the minimum speed and I couldn't make it slower than 1200.

Is it because of fusion drive? Can somebody share your experience with fusion drive or SSD?

 

[5iMacs]

I've had the i5/M90X/256SSD version for over a week, which is dead quiet at idle, and even when the fan speeds up enough to be audible under GPU load, it doesn't "hum", it makes a rather blank, whooshing air kind of of sound.

So I'd be inclined to think that you are hearing the hard drive in your computer, especially if your work area is very quiet, just my guess though.

 

[Serban]

1200 rpm at idle is the by default from the 2012 imacs

 

[FredT2]

Hi,

I have the basic configuration iMac Retina, and there is audible fan noise even I didn't do anything on iMac.

The fan noise is like slightly hum. smc fan control shows my fan speed is 1200, which is the minimum speed and I couldn't make it slower than 1200.

Is it because of fusion drive? Can somebody share your experience with fusion drive or SSD?

It is completely normal. The fan always runs, at 1200 RPM when not having to cool things down. If you have a fusion drive, you may or may not also hear the disk drive spinning. I can hear the fan when things are completely quiet in the house, but normally I don't notice it at all.

 

[hisrootness]

I also can hear the fan when my retina iMac is idle and it's quiet in the room. It's faint, but it's there. I couldn't hear any of my previous macs when they were idle.

Also, it's not hard to push the CPU so that the fan spins up and gets significantly louder.

 

[hoppel]

the fan runs at 1.200 rpm very silent but NOT noiseless. My MBPr ist a little bit more silent. Geekbench 3 stress test needs 1 minute to bring the fan speed higher than 1.200 rpm. Most of the time the iMac 5k runs very silent.

sometimes the iMac 5k whir on the left side. Don't know what it is.

best regards
Steffen
--
iMac 5k with Core i7 4GHz, 16GB, m290x, 1GB SSD