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Excessive fan

Hello


im hoping someone out there can shed any light.

I have an early Mac Pro 3.1 8 core, 3.2Ghz machine.

Pretty stable machine despite age. I updated to the latest 10.10.4 Yosemite software. Since then 4GB of RAM disappeared only leaving me with 8GB in total and every time I try and render from my 3D scene (Cinema 4d) the fan gets scarily loud I'm worried it's going to cook my Mac. Didn't have that behind prior the update and now worried to render off my sequence in case the fans die. I have tried re-seating the RAM and switching the sticks round with to

and bottom riser but no luck. One thing that is apprarent is the RAM sticks get incredibly hot very quickly after short use whereas this was not the case prior.

Any ideas would be welcomed. Not sure this update is right my my older Mac.

on a separate note. My mac keeps making intermittent chiriping sounds. has been doing so for a couple of years. Definitely not the hard drive as I changed it over a year ago and sound hasn't stopped. the sound appears to be coming from the front of the Mac. The heat sink cover keeps popping open and have taped it down with insulation tape but the heat keeps pulling the tape open. I am aware this chirping sound is a problem with the older Mac Pros.

Look forward to any replies.


Best


Sophia

Posted on Jul 4, 2015 11:01 PM

Reply
34 replies

Jul 5, 2015 12:49 AM in response to trentn

I know, could it be that it's old RAM that's had its day? It is a 7 year old Mac. I changed the video card two year ago because it died. I use my Mac a lot for my 3D work and do overnight renders for days sometimes. I'm not rendering now as I am more concerned with the excessive fan more than the RAM. In all the years I have had this my Mac I have never had the fans kicking off so aggressively like that when I tried to render my 3d sequence, all I can say is that this has occured since the new 10.10.4 Yosemite update.

Jul 5, 2015 12:06 PM in response to Sophia

Let me add that rendering will cause the processors to get very hot after a while, thus, the fans will run much faster to help cool the machine. After you stopped did the computer cool off any? I also urge you to do the following:


Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion or Lion


Boot to the Recovery HD:


Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.


Repair


When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility and press the Continue button. After Disk Utility loads select the Macintosh HD entry from the the left side list. Click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If Disk Utility reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit Disk Utility and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.

Now, download and install the OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 Combo Update.

Jul 5, 2015 12:21 PM in response to Kappy

Kappy, thank you for such a detailed suggestion. I will definitely do that.


Yes I am aware when I render the fans do kick off, for me the giveaway that something was wrong was when I picked up a render of a 3d scene I had already been rendering prior the 10.10.4 update and the fan was quiet with moderate increased fan speeds when rendering glass etc. This was different. The fans immediately spun up so fast so loud that in all the years I've had my Mac and tested it with huge renders I have never known the fans to be so loud and fast. It was immediately noticeably different. I got so worried I stopped the render and the Mac did respond as it should by the fans slowing down to normal speed. All I can say is it's linked to the update but I will try what you suggest.

Jul 5, 2015 1:25 PM in response to Sophia

FBDIMMs - new and cheap on Amazon - get the 667's instead, or ebay for server pulls that are abundant.


Defective DIMMs even yours from Crucial (I would avoid them) can cause fan issues.


Instead of TM backup use CCC to clone the system and enable the advanced setting to do checksums on all files copied.


FBDIMMs that once do not show up properly should never be used, too often SMC and resetting and they seem to work - for a day / a week / they are not trustworthy and can lead to errors.


4GB has always been minimal. 4x1GB is just that. Considering that even new laptops with 4GB have trouble with Yosemite should be reason enough.


8x2GB are cheap, run cool if you get NEMIX or others. I would not buy 800MHz though.

Jul 5, 2015 1:32 PM in response to The hatter

Ive been buying Crucial for years. The RAM for my old Mac are quite expensive on crucial now though. I'm left with 8GB and just ordered 8GB. I found some compabile Ram from Amazon but was a lot cheaper and wasn't sure if it would be okay. Can I mix and match different brands as long as the spec is the same?

Excessive fan

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