Extremely noisy fans

Yea, but I've seen cases here where 15 seconds didn't do it.

I miss the physical SMC Reset of the 2007 Mac Pro, or Open Firmware to reset-nvram.

However, your system is off the charts and hope you get it looked at and serviced all the same - soon!

I've tried all of these fixes with no luck. By the way, here are my temperatures during the time when the fans are full throttle. From what I can tell, I don't think these are too above average:

(all temps in Fahrenheit:)
HD: 86, CPU: 130, Amb: 76, Bay 2: 99, Bay 3 and 4: 77, Mem A2: 92, Mem A3: 95

I'm taking my Mac Pro into Apple in an hour. I'll let everyone know what they say.

Also, I have renamed my Mac Pro to: Mac Loud.

Had the same experience with my 8 core...

Booster A and B goes to above 4k (5k in my case) RPM and starts making a lot of noise.

Tried everything. Memory tests, removing what I had in terms of hardware (eSata cards etc), not using the UPS, software etc...

On iStat - I noticed that the Northbridbrige temperature spikes (for some unknown reason) to 130-120 degrees C). That is when the fans kick in...

I had Applecare come and they replaced the back board, fans and the heat-sinks for the CPU (cpu A)... Still have the problem from time-to-time... The only thing I have done that works is using smcFanControl and increase the intake and exhaust to 600RPM to keep the CPU bay a bit cooler. That has helped unless I put the machine to sleep and wake it up.. After it been awake for a while, it will kick in again...

A bit of a pain if you ask me... I could (and probably will) call Apple care again to see what can be done.

So - let us (me) know what you hear on your end... 😀

I just started having the same problem.

I have a 2.66 GHz Quad-Core MacPro I bought form Apple in late March 2009. Once about 6 weeks ago, I had a similar problem, but I was encoding video and restarting solved it.

Today, it just keeps happening again and again. I've shut down the machine 4 times. This last time, I re-set the SMC. I've just rebooted and we'll see what happens. But before the fans would wind up, I was doing some web work. Just coding and browsing and email. Nothing even remotely intensive.

Here are the stats I got before my last shut-down.

FANS
----
PCI 927rpm
BOOSTA 3994rpm
Exhaust 2796rpm
Power 599rpm
Intake 2894rpm

TEMPS (C)
-------
HD 1 40
HD 2 37
HD 3 39
CPU 30
Ambient 28
HD Bay1 31
HD Bay2 31
HD Bay3 32

Nothing there seems even remotely warm to me. Since I've owned this Mac, I've marveled at how quiet it is. It would run completely silent all of the time. The only noise I would get is from the fans in an external drive.

I'll post back later to see if the SMC reset worked. It's only been about 10 minutes - which is longer than the last two restarts, but not long enough to celebrate yet.

Made it almost 36 hours. Worked all day yesterday and had closed up my apps before bed. About 20 minutes after I went to bed, the fans started up again. I unplugged everything for the night and just started it up again at 8:20am.

We'll see.

20 minutes in... fans are on full blast... ugh

No problems here. System info below if it helps any one with their issue:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro4,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s
Boot ROM Version: MP41.0081.B04
SMC Version (system): 1.39f5
SMC Version (processor tray): 1.39f5


I have never heard my fans increase speed at any point - importing/editing video, running multiple VMs in Virtual Box, playing audio or video through iTunes.

My CPU temp remains sub 40 celsius - mostly between 30-32 as high as 37 playing iTunes audio/video.

I have not seen fan speeds above 856 rpm according to iStat.

Aside from stock, I have added 1 stick of 1 GB RAM (4 GB Total)
2 500 GB HD
1 LG DVR drive.

I've been in the same boat as you. Tried the same things. Even looked for firmware updates. This one thing helped somewhat. The fans are still too loud but it brings them down once in a while and takes longer for them to get to the peak of the loudness now that I installed SMC Fan Control 2.2. I'd still like a better fix but this is the best so far.

I even put in a tech call and they were completely useless on this problem. Freakin corporations they're all the same, always screwing the consumer in as many ways as they can.

I've been in the same boat as you. Tried the same things. Even looked for firmware updates. This one thing helped somewhat. The fans are still too loud but it brings them down once in a while and takes longer for them to get to the peak of the loudness now that I installed SMC Fan Control 2.2. I'd still like a better fix but this is the best so far.

I even put in a tech call and they were completely useless on this problem. Freakin corporations they're all the same, always screwing the consumer in as many ways as they can.

SMC reset does not work for this. I've tried it multiple times. left everything unplugged for much more than ten minutes. I wish people would stop asserting that this works.

SMC Reset will stop the fans from running so high, for a while at least. I've had varying degrees of "success", lasting from 10 minutes to 36 hours. This problem is only 5 days old for me, but I'm pretty certain it is a software issue and not a hardware issue.

Yesterday, when the fans kicked up, I went to sleep mode and woke it back up and they've been silent since. That will be my new MO until I have time to really delve into this or 10.6.2 comes out. I spent some time with Apple Tech on the phone over the weekend. According to the girl I talked to, it is an undocumented problem. She and I went through the usual array of hardware tests and resets, with no problems found and no real solutions presenting themselves.

Her solution was to do a re-install. That is never my solution - especially with 4 active projects going right now. And, frankly, odds are, whatever software I've got running that has created this problem will be there after I reinstall too. I don't run any apps I don't need or use.

Until something else presents itself, I'll use the "Sleep" solution.

One person using SmcFanControl had high rpms until they deleted the plist for SFC, then the fans returned to normal.

Well, in my case I can clearly see when the Northbridge gets hot. My understanding is that it sits under the same heatsink as CPUA (but I could be wrong)..

This is this mornings readings when I turned the computer on...

http://gallery.me.com/ramses.moya#100137

You can see the northbridge jumping to 126C in a matter of 30 minutes and the boosterA and boosterB jumping to 5k RPM... the fans then stay the way they are until the computer goes to sleep... This happens from time to time - so its not always this quick and I might have a day or two without it... but it always happens...

I'm having Apple come to check the computer out for the second time to have it fixed 😟

If any one is monitoring the Northbridge, let me know...

I hope you get this fixed, it really sounds like it is dangerously out of control! I can't imagine what fans @ 5k sound like. I've read of people using too small a UPS having odd problems (mostly a buzz from PSU or shutdown issues).

Even Intel Xeon Nehalem should start shutting itself off and throttling when it gets over 100 and then at 125.

Would be nice if it was just a defective sensor causing all this but that will be for the engineers and techs.

I don't have resolution for this problem, but I am having the same exact thing happen to me. I am hoping that Apple sees how long this list gets and begins to address it. I don't believe I should have to pay anything for this fix and I won't pay. This should be a recall on their part and the only way that will happen is if they see multiple users with the same exact issue.

I'll be watching this thread though. I've tried everything that you guys have discussed with similar success. Some days it never comes on, other days it comes on in 2 minutes. It is sickening...