Is there a strange sound coming from your iMac?

This is my first Mac and wasn't really sure what to expect.

Your alum iMac should be quiet. Essentially all of them are.

It was wise of you to seek assistance early on, rather than unnecessarily putting up with the noise. If the noise just suddenly appeared, its cause can be fixed now, which is better than waiting until later.

Fortunately for the health of the iMac, the fans do operate all the time. As one would expect of any all-in-one unit, the iMac is designed so that the minor fan noise is directed away from the user. A user can best judge how minor the fan noise is by rotating the iMac 180 degrees, so that the screen is facing directly away and the noise is coming directly at the user.

It is easy to position an iMac so close to hard surfaces behind and around it that this echo chamber environment will make the minor fan noise quite obvious to a user sitting in front of the machine. Some users may find the effect to be intolerable.

A couple possible solutions: positioning the Mac further away from the hard surfaces, thereby breaking down the echo chamber that some users accidentally created for themselves. Alternatively, adjusting the environment so that the echo chamber doesn't exist, or so that its effect is damped by the addition of soft surfaces which absorb noise rather than reflect it.

Good luck to you in getting your iMac back to the quiet state in which it should be, a quiet that all the rest of us enjoy.

Apple repair justed called. My machine has been repaired. Didn't ask what they did. Will report back when I pick it up tomorrow as to what repairs were actually made, if any.

@myhighway:
I had the same sound under the same circumstances as a lot of those posted here. It seemed as if "tweaking" the monitor would change the noise, but only briefly. All symptoms pointed to the inverter. I was going to wait it out, since there aren't any service centers near me, then the latest firmware update was released. Since I've installed it, the noise is gone, my brightness is back down to halfway, where I like it, and installing iStat and SMC keep my finger on the "pulse" of this machine. I've had 5 Macs in the past 16 years, all of which are still running. Oh, and I've been meandering on this thread for a while, and there are at least 3 posts which address this noise issue.

Message was edited by: Joe Blog

I am having this exact same problem and it comes and goes depending on the brightness of my monitor. The sad part is... I bought my imac... TODAY!!!! and now Tonight already having trouble. Please email me and let me know how you resoled the issue lovethepolice@gmail.com

I have heard weird sounds emanating from my iMac: (1) a loud "Boom" that sounds like a gunshot. First time I heard it, I thought something fell down, a bookcase or a large picture. I have heard the sound five different times spread out over a period of several months. Very random. (2) "pouf" sounds that are similar to the sound when removing something from the dock. I hear these sounds frequently (usually two or three times a day.) The first several times that I heard these sounds, there was nothing attached to my iMac other than the mouse and keyboard. Since then, I have attached an external firewire hard drive. When I contacted Apple Tech about the sounds, they urged me to take the iMac to the Apple Store for investigation. Apple Store techs could not find the cause of the sounds. Apple techs followed up and told me to take the iMac back to the store to look at it again. I haven't done so yet because I'm finshing up a project but as soon as finished will take to the store for anther checkup. If any of you have knowledge of either of these sounds, PLEASE let me know.

John,
I also have this problem and was wondering how you got it fixed. I don't want to bring it back to Best Buy and mess w/ the file transfer thing. Thanks.

Bought a brand new iMac 24" 3.06GHz 4GB MEM 1TB HD 2 weeks ago.

Soft hum, but enough to go nuts.

Returned it, and today got a new one.

Same story.

I've read about this hum on different fora and ppl try to locate the problem.

But I noticed putting the system 2 feet from a wall actually solves the problem. Now that's great if your desk is in the middle of the room, but not the case here

I have a white 20" and a recent aluminum 20" model both are DEAD SILENT. No hum, no squeeck, nothing...

I think it's a serious flaw of the 24". At first I thought this new 3.06GHz processor needed some serious cooling but seems the 2.8GHz suffers the same problem.

And serious cooling would be done when fans start to fire up for heavy stuff, I know the difference.

But this is a static hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

If you install iStat Pro from www.islayer.com one can read the fan speeds.
1198-1200 rpm all the time and according to others it's same on both 2.8 and 3.06 models.

So I think Apple missed something here or they all have their pc's @ least 2 feet from a wall.

So tomorrow this iMac is going back, no compromises. Sorry Apple !

Hi All,

I Just installed iStat Pro because my fan seems to be running on an unusually high speed since I last started it. iStat Pro can not read fan speed on my computer. Should I take my computer to service to get it checked out? It Never done this before and it is only started it an hour and a bit ago.

Thx a lot!

Lol!!!! the spirit of your older mac... I just bought my first Mac (iMac) and I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!