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imac with fans running constantly?

A

ashjamben

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 28, 2007
608
1
Shanghai, China
hey, my friends just made the switch and got an imac. he's got it running fine but the fans are constantly running at full belt, even with nothing running? i'm on here quite abit but normally on the macbook area, so not sure if this is a common problem? and if it could be fixed easily? he's taking it back to the apple store soon but it'd be easier to get a quick fix than lugging it there.

also, think he bought at the wrong time? the buyers guide says its approaching the end of a cycle. so if possible, could he just return it and wait for a new one?

thanks
 
the current iMacs are fine. i dont think they will be updates for a while. there may be some hardware updates soon you never know but there will definitely not be any cosmetic updates soon.

tell him to have a look at Activity Monitor which is in the Utilities folder and see if any apps are hogging the cpu. just force quit them. if its a process that cant be quit a simple reboot should fix it. unless theres something wrong with his iMac's fans.
 
What do you mean they are running at full belt? The fans are always spinning, but it should be near silent. If it's constantly loud and sounds like a vacuum cleaner there could be a hardware problem.

Try downloading the istat pro widget. The fans should be at around 1000 RPM at idle.
 
Use Spotlight to search: Activity Monitor
Change My Processes to "All Processes"
Sort by %CPU. Anything above 5% at idle is the problem.

Let us know what is soaking up the CPU. Otherwise if he bought brand new, he can call AppleCare and they'll walk him through with some things that might help such as

- Reset PRAM
- Rest SMU
 
thanks for the heads up.

i'll let him know tomorrow about some things he can check. i think he's planning on going to the genius bar in a couple of days.
 
Fan speeds

According to iStat, my fans are running like this:
CPU Fan is 1197 RPM. Hard drive Fan is 1199 RPM. Optical Drive Fan is 698 RPM. I assume this is normal/nominal. And they are quiet to the point of being unnoticeable.
Morod
 
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