How Silent Are Macs?

IceDigger

IceDigger

[H]F Junkie
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Feb 22, 2001
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So I'm interested in getting my first mac computer, dual 2ghz g5. How silent are they?
 
Well if you bought me one too i would tell you.

Truthfully i dn't have any first hand expirence with the new powermacs. But i do know that apple puts alot of time and money into designing their computers from the inside out. I never heard anyone complain about the noise level on the G5

I know the dual 2.5 models have a liquid cooling system. It is documented here . But i do not know if any of the other models use the same system.
 
lets just say when we got the first 1.6G5 on our floor and turned it on we couldn't hear ANYTHING...we weren't even sure it was on until the OS X splash screen came up..the Dual 2Gigs should be about the same....bout the only time you hear anything is if there is an issue with the comp and the thermal system is not getting any updates from the OS so it will ramp the fans up to max and blow small children and pets around the room...you can run into some other issues if you are trying to do audio mixing and don't have proper grounding for ALL of your equipment....the only other sounds I have heard from the comps is occational beeps from the PSU under heavy loads and possibly some "electronic noise" when doing LARGE file transfers but in general they are about as quiet as you can get a computer and still have fans in it...in most cases with any ambient noise I doubt you would hear it
 
They have real good cooling systems that keep the fans quiet most of the time. As gigglebyte said they can ramp up the fans at which point the thing is very loud but they usually only do that on startup before the thermal sensors kick in and in very few other events. I have to agree in saying they are more quiet then most of the other computers I deal with.
 
the only mac ive ever used in any great amount was the 1ghz powermac G4. it was supposedly one of the loudest macs ever made; i think its actually fairly quiet. and, the mac mini is insanely quiet. the fans are very low speed in the G5 so that it is very quiet. ive never seen a G5 in use in a quieter environment (just in showrooms and such) but i believe they are quite quiet.
 
I have an iMac G5, and until I changed the processor specs from automatic to max power, I never heard anything. Now, if it is absolutely silent in the room, I can hear a low whirring sound. Otherwise, ambient noise masks it totally over 95% of the time.

Orc
 
I have a G4 tower and its pretty quiet, but my antec sonata case is much more quiet.
 
RiSE said:
I have a G4 tower and its pretty quiet, but my antec sonata case is much more quiet.
Click to expand...

well if you read the first post you will see they are looking at a G5 and not a G4...makes a HUGE difference
 
As long as you don't have a noisy 9800SE in it, the G5 is very quiet for computers in general, but quite loud for Macs. Minis and portables, you generally can't tell that they're turned on at all, and I'm not exaggerating. You don't hear the fan in a PowerBook until you actively listen for it.
 
We just ordered a bunch of new macs at my job that I have been assigned with setting up. So in my cube right now I have an XServe single proc G5, dual proc PowerMac G5, iMac G5, 1.4ghz PB G4, and a 14" iMac G4. Not to mention my standard Dell tower. Until I got the XServe the loudest thing in my cube was the Dell tower. Even now the XServe is only loud when you first turn it on. I think the PowerMac might be quiter then the iMac's I've set up.
 
if you want silence then hit up a mini, there is NO noise. unless running games such as world of warcraft then its only just audiable if your sat within a foot of it.
 
The only think I hear in my families dual 1.8 G5 is the harddrive. After 100% cpu usage for a long time the fans become slightly audible.
 
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