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i9 iMac fan noise

J

jerryitall

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 8, 2020
16
19
Austin, TX
So I finally came back to the Mac for the first time since 2013 and I have a refurb i9 iMac. This is the first day I have it up and running and the fan seems to be on a lot.

I used to be a power user but it has been a long time so what utilities should I look at for monitoring fan speed and what is normal for an i9 iMac?
 
jerryitall said:
This is the first day I have it up and running and the fan seems to be on a lot.
Click to expand...

It is on all the time, starting at 1200 rpm. I don't notice that. But fan can be noisy if CPU (many cores) or GPU is loaded. I notice it for things like Handbrake and Lightroom imports. I am another fan of iStat Menus.
 
+1 on iStat Menus
I have the 2017 i7 not i9 but on that I’ve found that just disabling the turbo boost is sufficient to stop the fans spinning up fr my setup, so having a massive % impact on sound for only a few % less performance. YMMV on i9.
 
It’s normal.
It’s a high frequency 8 cores CPU with 14 nm lithography.

Of course the fans will spin under load conditions. Especially the firsts days because Spotlight indexes the drive.
 
LOL - I too went from a 2013 iMac (Had the 780m video and got tired of no support) and the first thing that stood out about my i9 Vega48 system is how loud and often in use the fan is. Apparently the CPU is really prone to spiking one core and that is enough to set the fans off
 
So, I think it has mostly settled down. Maybe first day with updates, installs, indexing, etc. Also, this thing is FAST!
 
Back in 2017 I bought a Core i7 27" iMac. I returned and got a Core i5-7600. I was MUCH happier with the Core i5 because the i5 is basically silent 99% of the time with my usage. In contrast, the i7 was very quick to ramp up the fans, and it really, really annoyed me.

The current i9 runs even hotter than my 2017 i7.

To put it another way, I just don't think the cooling system of the iMac is well suited for Intel CPUs with a TDP of 90 Watts or more. The more appropriate chips are the 65 W class chips. That's not true of the iMac Pro though. It runs even hotter chips but more quietly, because it has a much more robust cooling system.
 
Interesting. Also my iMac completely crapped out today. Started with a kernel panic then uncontrollable crashes and finally leading to a computer that does not boot at all. Can’t even get to recovery.
 
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