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Level 1

25 points

Force CPU fan to run full speed.

Hello,

1st time Mac buyer here. I just picked up a iMac G5 17" 2Ghz at the Apple Store on Saturday.

Anyway, I've got what seems to be an excessively loud fan noise when the processor is pushed. So I go to the Apple Store and let a Genius look at it. He somehow got the processor to run full speed by booting into some command line thing. The CPU fan began to run full speed and got loud. It seemed really loud to me but he told me it was normal for this computer. I'm not so sure.

I'm thinking about going to CompUSA or Fry's and try running the fans full speed there to see if it sounds like mine or not. I don't know how to do the thing to make the fans run full speed. Can anyone help me out?

THANKS!

Posted on Jul 20, 2005 7:25 PM

19 replies

Jul 23, 2005 10:55 AM in response to ToBeHuman

In my case its loud all the time. After my iMac has been awake for 15 minutes those are my constant fan speeds. The first 4 months I had it everything was great. Fans hardly changed. Now its wide open all the time.

Jul 23, 2005 12:01 PM in response to ToBeHuman

adidas,
Your temps. do not sound normal at all. I normally run at 127.4 F routinely using 3-4 apps. at once. If you are expericencing these types of temps. you might want to keep the room in which your iMac sits, cooler. Even an inexpensive osillating fan will help. What types of apps are you running in order to acheive those temps?

BTW on a side topic: Do the fans stop running after you let go the apple option+FO? and return to the OS?

Aug 27, 2005 12:49 AM in response to ToBeHuman

ToBe

Since you have the 17". I was wondering if you could identify for us if one or more of the fans are making the intolerable noise. My problem was a buzzing, toy-whistle sound from the bottom left of the computer, which meant the CPU fan. (there are two others, the hard drive fan, top right, and the system fan, top center). It was benign but annoying at 1500 RPM but got out of hand around 4000 RPM. I managed to fix the problem with a little creativity, and it now runs silently and cools just as well.

EDIT

I might add, that the sounds of the fans at full blast would probably be overwhelming if they were to run like that all the time. I've heard it describec as a vacuum cleaner or a hair dryer.

woodie

Level 4

1,086 points

Aug 27, 2005 9:57 AM in response to ToBeHuman

another way to run the fans at full speed is to restart with the shift key down.
I have to do that every so ofen to get my sounds back in mail since upgrading to Tiger,
remember the 9.0 days when we did that to boot up with ext. off.

Force CPU fan to run full speed.