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Problems after moving iMac to France (power supply, HDD or...?)

I have an April 2010 iMac 27" originally bought in the UK.


I've just relocated to France. The two times I've used the machine it's been sluggish, getting very hot, very quickly at the top and has a very slight whirring noise at the back of the unit in the top left corner (left if you're facing the screen). The second time I kept it on for only an hour before shutting it down in case I was doing damage to it.


Looking at the tech specs I had thought that the iMacs had universal electrical input (or at least between 100 - 240v » https://support.apple.com/kb/SP588). It does appear to be the power though since the hard-drive sounds as it should do and the whirring continues for a while after shutdown (and the harddrive has stopped making what little noise it does make) but stops instantly if the power cable is removed as soon as the iMac has shut down.


The only other thing is that I haven't changed the Seagate 1Tb harddrive that Apple has said could fail. I realise I need to do that regardless of anything else since I only have until April 12th, but could that be the cause of the problems/ noise? The harddrive sounds like it's booting up and behaving normally.


Or could it be that something's gone bump in the journey and that's causing the problems? Could a fan have become slightly loose and that be the reason for the slight whirr in the top left corner?


Any help/ reasurrance would be greatly appreciated.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Apr 3, 2013 6:08 AM

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Posted on Apr 3, 2013 6:12 AM

Do some basics such as removing the RAM cover and vacuuming out any dust that may have accumulated. DO NOT blow into the machine, vacuum. You don't say how warm it gets so please be specific, you can download iStatPro for free and that will tell you actual temps.


Also don't be afraid to do some basic resets, resetting the SMC and PRAM (2 x each) would be a good start too. You can find instructions by clicking Intel iMac SMC and PRAM resets

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Question marked as Best reply

Apr 3, 2013 6:12 AM in response to Eddhmr

Do some basics such as removing the RAM cover and vacuuming out any dust that may have accumulated. DO NOT blow into the machine, vacuum. You don't say how warm it gets so please be specific, you can download iStatPro for free and that will tell you actual temps.


Also don't be afraid to do some basic resets, resetting the SMC and PRAM (2 x each) would be a good start too. You can find instructions by clicking Intel iMac SMC and PRAM resets

Apr 3, 2013 7:17 AM in response to rkaufmann87

So, the vacuuming and SMC/ PRAM restarts seem to have helped. I've got the machine back on now and it's less sluggish. Still a slight 'whirr' but less than before. I've installed iStatPro so hopefully that'll be able to give some useful information as well in terms of temperature. Thanks again for the help!


Just to double check then my initial idea that it could a power supply problem was way off base?

Problems after moving iMac to France (power supply, HDD or...?)

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