My boss recently gave me his 27" 2011 (12,2) iMac to use at the office. I immediately upgraded it to an SSD (Samsung 850 EVO) and even installed the OWC thermal sensor but it seems the fans are running high. Unfortunately, I didnt really pay attention to the fan speed before the upgrade, but do these numbers look normal or high? Im way too OCD for fans to be running high for no reason. Thanks for the help.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iMac 2011 Fans Run High After SSD Install
- Thread starter BrandoFiasco
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
on my 2009 and 2011 models I just set the fan speeds just under the point where they are noticeable. So I crank them up to where the noise is too much to listen to all the time then back them off just a little until I can't really hear them to where they are barely noticeable and check temps.
They have been set to that setting for years and are used at work 4 days a week and are still running great.
The reason I set them the way I do is if I put the fan setting on the lowest setting and I do some CPU intensive tasks, the computer gets fairly warm then I am playing the fan adjustment game and have to remember that if I do this task I have to bump the fans up then remember to turn them back down.
Auto settings usually max the HDD fan out again which is the loud one of the bunch. I keep all 3 somewhere around the middle which is a good compromise for me with noise and temperatures and keep airflowing.
If you plan on gaming the ODD fan would be the one to speed up more as the GPU is situated just above the superdrive. That is the only time I ever changed fan speeds.
I never had luck with the paperclip into the thermal connector trick or even with the OWC sensor, I had to run a fan controller on both machines and this was my experience with them.
They have been set to that setting for years and are used at work 4 days a week and are still running great.
The reason I set them the way I do is if I put the fan setting on the lowest setting and I do some CPU intensive tasks, the computer gets fairly warm then I am playing the fan adjustment game and have to remember that if I do this task I have to bump the fans up then remember to turn them back down.
Auto settings usually max the HDD fan out again which is the loud one of the bunch. I keep all 3 somewhere around the middle which is a good compromise for me with noise and temperatures and keep airflowing.
If you plan on gaming the ODD fan would be the one to speed up more as the GPU is situated just above the superdrive. That is the only time I ever changed fan speeds.
I never had luck with the paperclip into the thermal connector trick or even with the OWC sensor, I had to run a fan controller on both machines and this was my experience with them.
Not sure why the OWC sensor isn't working but if you want to avoid using fan control software you could reinstall the HDD and put your SSD in the space under the the SuperDrive. There's an iFixit guide showing the process. Doing that obviously means you also have extra internal storage for back-ups, or to create a Fusion drive.
Maybe it truly was hot or I'm not use to how long it takes to cool, but it seems to have settled now for the last half of the day. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Thanks for your tips. Im trying to avoid software if I can, especially since I bought the damn hardware lol.