In Lieu Of a Noisy iMac

[StrangeMagic66]

I got an iMac 5k retina from apple.com but have been plagued by fan noise even when the machine is idle with nothing plugged into it. I got a replacement iMac and had the same issue. I did further research and feedback online is that the 5k iMac is noisy, has idle fan noise. I am looking for an alternative while I can still exchange my machine. The noisy while idle is a dealbreaker for me.

I am considering getting a macpro. A friend of mine who owned a graphic design company used the old model but I have never been exposed to these cylinder type models. How are they in comparison? Are they quiet? Also, what sort of large monitor would you recommend pairing it with? How are these compared to iMac? I understand iMac is releasing their own pro in December but not sure if I want to wait...

Any sort of information, feedback, advise is appreciated. So frustrated with all the noise coming from my new imac. I'm okay spending more to get a quieter machine. Thanks.

 

[ignatius345]

My 5k iMac is dead silent unless I'm transcoding video or something. The only thing I hear 90% of the time are my external drives if they're spinning.

What are you running on yours, I have to ask? Like, if you open Activity Monitor and sort your processes by CPU usage, what's happening there? Because that does not sound normal to me.
[doublepost=1508989495][/doublepost]Also, you really don't want to buy one of the current Mac Pros right now. They're seriously outdated and very expensive.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

Tower Mac Pros have never been super quiet. They aren't loud, but they definitely are not silent. There are six different fans in the 4,1/5,1 Mac Pros. They do each run at a fairly low RPM, but they are noticeable in a quiet room.

A 5K iMac can be heard when its CPUs are being stressed; however, that shouldn't consistently be the case for your machine, unless you're constantly running heavy software on it.

 

[StrangeMagic66]

My 5k iMac is dead silent unless I'm transcoding video or something. The only thing I hear 90% of the time are my external drives if they're spinning.

What are you running on yours, I have to ask? Like, if you open Activity Monitor and sort your processes by CPU usage, what's happening there? Because that does not sound normal to me.
[doublepost=1508989495][/doublepost]Also, you really don't want to buy one of the current Mac Pros right now. They're seriously outdated and very expensive.

It looks like Kernel Task is taking a huge amount of CPU. kernel_task 3.6 (CPU) 6:09.21 (CPU Time). Is this the culprit? I would rather not have to exchange my iMac but nobody at AppleCare is helping me. They have just told me to send it back. erasing and restoring is a lot of work and I've done this twice already.

 

[Hater]

You want a silent machine yet you're considering buying a -workstation- ?

You should be looking at a Mac Mini, one of the passively cooled ones if you want quiet.

 

[mp2017]

My friends 5K iMacs are dead silent at idle so I have to agree something is wrong. It is puzzling two different systems would exhibit the same behavior. The only thing I can think of is an environmental issue (unlikely) or some software you've installed is causing the fans to spin up. What is the system like if you just have the OS installed? Does the problem persist?

The Mac Pro is a quiet system and is likely to handle heavier work loads with less noise. Since your problem is at idle I'm not sure moving to a Mac Pro is the right move. We'd need additional information to determine if the move to a Mac Pro is appropriate.

Can you provide background information on what you use / intend to use the system for? Any external devices? Etc.

 

[ignatius345]

It looks like Kernel Task is taking a huge amount of CPU. kernel_task 3.6 (CPU) 6:09.21 (CPU Time). Is this the culprit? I would rather not have to exchange my iMac but nobody at AppleCare is helping me. They have just told me to send it back. erasing and restoring is a lot of work and I've done this twice already.

If it was me, I'd do a clean install of the OS, then bring my files and apps back in.

Maybe someone more knowledgable than I can chime in on what "kernel_task" is, but if it's pegging your CPU constantly, and you're not doing some intensive operation, then that sounds like a problem.

 

[Hater]

If it was me, I'd do a clean install of the OS, then bring my files and apps back in.

Maybe someone more knowledgable than I can chime in on what "kernel_task" is, but if it's pegging your CPU constantly, and you're not doing some intensive operation, then that sounds like a problem.

If one machine is quiet and another one it not, then you need to start looking at 3rd party stuff.

you're not connecting 15TB worth of external HDD's are you, and it's indexing all of those files in the background etc are you?

Or connecting some kind of external printer or DAC that uses 3rd party drivers?

 

[h9826790]

Outside air temperature and noise level can make the difference.

Since you’ve already changed the machine once. I even doubt if your problem is software issue (unless you recover everything right after you receive the new machine, then you may recovery the software bug to the new iMac as well).

Anyway, the Mac Pro 6,1 is a very quiet machine. Relatively the 5,1 is not that quiet, but still hard to call it noisy under normal situation (very depends on the graphic card option).

 

[Ph.D.]

iMacs are not "dead silent." They have a fan. The fan makes noise (and some have spinning disks too). You can hear it if you are in a quiet room and/or you have sensitive hearing. It's that simple. With all due respect, the people who chime in with "mine is dead quiet" in every such thread are not doing anyone else a favor.

Check your fan speed, e.g. with smcFanControl or Macs Fan Control, etc. It should be 1200 RPM at idle. That's the lowest it will ever go unless hacked, regardless of the CPU choice, etc. Personally, I don't consider that to be anywhere near "dead quiet" and I do find it irritating (I have a base model 2017 with SSD).

iMacs will never be "dead silent" until they are fanless and completely solid state (no spinning drives either, obviously). Personally, I'm hoping for a fanless iMac with a bezel-less OLED screen, perhaps something like 6k and 32" or so. I don't care if it's less powerful if I get true dead silence out of it.

Realistically, nothing that's "Pro" will ever be "dead silent." The nMP did pretty well, though.

 

[mp2017]

iMacs are not "dead silent." They have a fan. The fan makes noise (and some have spinning disks too). You can hear it if you are in a quiet room and/or you have sensitive hearing. It's that simple. With all due respect, the people who chime in with "mine is dead quiet" in every such thread are not doing anyone else a favor.

I said my friends are "dead silent at idle". Both have SSD for their storage so no hard disk noise. Now who to trust: Some random guy on the Internet or my own ears...hmmm.

Are we really having this discussion?

 

[Ph.D.]

I said my friends are "dead silent at idle". Both have SSD for their storage so no hard disk noise. Now who to trust: Some random guy on the Internet or my own ears...hmmm.

Are we really having this discussion?

Sorry, iMacs are not "dead silent" ever, including at idle (the fan is set to 1200 RPM minimum at idle).

Yes, we really are having this discussion, since the OP is concerned about noise. If you can't hear the fan, fine, say so in an appropriately qualified fashion, e.g. "I personally couldn't hear the fan when I dropped by my friends place - seemed dead quiet to me." However, I and others certainly can. I'm typing on one right now (base model with SSD) and can hear the fan noise quite clearly. I found it irritating enough to hack mine to lower the idle fan speed. The OP might want to investigate how to do this too.

Peace.

 

[mp2017]

Sorry, iMacs are not "dead silent" ever, including at idle (the fan is set to 1200 RPM minimum at idle).

Yes, we really are having this discussion, since the OP is concerned about noise. If you can't hear the fan, fine, say so in an appropriately qualified fashion, e.g. "I personally couldn't hear the fan when I dropped by my friends place - seemed dead quiet to me." However, I and others certainly can. I'm typing on one right now (base model with SSD) and can hear the fan noise quite clearly. I found it irritating enough to hack mine to lower the idle fan speed. The OP might want to investigate how to do this too.

Peace.

Who knew that one needed an attorney to help others is a forum? The amount of pedantry in this forums is ridiculous. It's obvious to me people here are more interested in pedantic arguments than actually trying to assist people. Congratulations...you win. I'm not dealing with it anymore. Helping others isn't worth this level of stupidity.

Mods...please delete my account.

 

[circuitt]

My 6,1 is silent. iMac are too loud for my needs, maybe not yours.

 

[William Payne]

Silent is a very user specific thing. My 5,1 for example if my room is dead silent I can hear the fans idling away but I only really notice it if im listening for it. Most times I forget about it and never even notice. If your workflow is in a dead silent environment then yeah you may hear fans on some machines and depending on personal preference or levels of deafness it may or may not be a big problem.

I consider my 5,1 dead quiet but for me that is in comparison to other machines I have had which are anything but quiet. In my office if its dead silent you will just hear a distant very quiet hum.

This is one of those things that you can only really judge for yourself.

PS: Sometimes if I notice a fan getting slightly noisy I open fan controller and set everything to full speed and leave it for a few minutes then take it back to normal speeds. Usually takes care of whatever was causing the noise.

 

[ignatius345]

iMacs are not "dead silent." They have a fan. The fan makes noise (and some have spinning disks too). You can hear it if you are in a quiet room and/or you have sensitive hearing. It's that simple. With all due respect, the people who chime in with "mine is dead quiet" in every such thread are not doing anyone else a favor.

Short of getting out a calibrated decibel meter, this is all going to be very relative, yeah?

The original poster was complaining about his iMac running loud, and the general consensus is that an idle iMac should probably be "really ***** quiet when idle in a quiet room".

 

[MarkJames68]

You want a silent machine yet you're considering buying a -workstation- ?

You should be looking at a Mac Mini, one of the passively cooled ones if you want quiet.

Which model is this? Having opened my 2012 and 2014 minis I’ve seen a fan in each. Granted they are pretty quiet, but to my knowledge no mini is passively cooled.

The 2013 Pro is very quiet - even with the fan up it’s mostly a quiet whoosh rather than what my MBP does.

I actually disagree that it’s a bad buy. You can get a new quad core now for $2K, upgrade the CPU (voiding warranty) inexpensively, or pay a bit more and have OWC do it. I just bought 64GB of RAM on eBay for $240. The graphics are getting anemic but 3 separate Thunderbolt 2 busses mean eGPU and external storage are viable options.

What I won’t disagree with is that it is getting long in the tooth, but good deals are to be had for a nice, small, quiet workhorse.

 

[fb3]

I'm in a similar situation.

Bought the iMac 2017 i5 Radeon 575 (SSD) and it's idle fan humming is driving me nuts. It's so minimal, but it's just not right for me. Like a constant hum and definitely audible when sitting in front. Today I received a replacement (kudos to Apple, I'm still in my 14 days window and BTOs get replacements before you have to return), but it's the same. So I'm seriously considering returning all two of them. Bummer because everything else about this machine is great (that screen!) :-(

I need this mostly as a writing machine and this is not good as my home office is really quiet... Back to my (noisy) 2009 machine for the meantime it seems and play the waiting game.

Maybe I need to get myself a MacBook Pro and an external monitor? Any educated guesses if any 2018 machines will be better?

 

[filmak]

I'm in a similar situation.

Bought the iMac 2017 i5 Radeon 575 (SSD) and it's idle fan humming is driving me nuts. It's so minimal, but it's just not right for me. Like a constant hum and definitely audible when sitting in front. Today I received a replacement (kudos to Apple, I'm still in my 14 days window and BTOs get replacements before you have to return), but it's the same. So I'm seriously considering returning all two of them. Bummer because everything else about this machine is great (that screen!) :-(

I need this mostly as a writing machine and this is not good as my home office is really quiet... Back to my (noisy) 2009 machine for the meantime it seems and play the waiting game.

Maybe I need to get myself a MacBook Pro and an external monitor? Any educated guesses if any 2018 machines will be better?

Under load every MacBook Pro will have an audible fan. Do you think that a possible option, if you 're interested only in writing, is a MacBook, or a MacMini?


OP -> A 6,1 Mac Pro is a very silent system.

 

[fb3]

Under load every MacBook Pro will have an audible fan. Do you think that a possible option, if you 're interested only in writing, is a MacBook, or a MacMini?


OP -> A 6,1 Mac Pro is a very silent system.

Thanks, but I'm not talking under load, I'm talking sitting there doing nothing... I fully expect to hear fans when compiling, or doing other intense tasks

 

[filmak]

Thanks, but I'm not talking under load, I'm talking sitting there doing nothing... I fully expect to hear fans when compiling, or doing other intense tasks

Welcome.
Under no load MBPs are usually silent. Do not expect a completely silent iMac. Only the Pro variant is silent as I have read from other people.
The only MB without a fan is the MacBook 12". (not for intense tasks, but just for writing is completely silent)
Can you go to a store near you and check them?

 

[fb3]

Welcome.
Under no load MBPs are usually silent. Do not expect a completely silent iMac. Only the Pro variant is silent as I have read from other people.
The only MB without a fan is the MacBook 12".
Can you go to a store near you and check them?

I do have the MacBook Early 2016 from work for trips, but I hate the keyboard with a passion (though the 2017 might be better?). Ideally I need more power (occasionally) + thunderbolt3; so if I go laptop + external display I'd go with a MacBook Pro 13" and a nice usb-c display I suppose...

 

[filmak]

I do have the MacBook Early 2016 from work for trips, but I hate the keyboard with a passion (though the 2017 might be better?). Ideally I need more power (occasionally) + thunderbolt3; so if I go laptop + external display I'd go with a MacBook Pro 13" and a nice usb-c display I suppose...

I think that all current MBP keyboards are inferior to the older models. Slimness is their enemy.
As MP 6,1 is silent too and you can always place it in a far distance from you, would that be a choice too?
I use one, writing for many hours, I do not notice any irritating noise or a noise at all, under no load.

 

[fb3]

I think that all current MBP keyboards are inferior to the older models. Slimness is their enemy.
As MP 6,1 is silent too and you can always place it in a far distance from you, would that be a choice too?
I use one, writing for many hours, I do not notice any irritating noise or a noise at all, under no load.

I always kind of liked this one (never used one), but I find it hard to shell that money for 2013 tech to be honest...

 

[filmak]

I always kind of liked this one (never used one), but I find it hard to shell that money for 2013 tech to be honest...

That's true...
I hope you 'll find something suitable and quiet. Good luck!
[doublepost=1517424129][/doublepost]

I always kind of liked this one (never used one), but I find it hard to shell that money for 2013 tech to be honest...

Also have in mind, if you go for an external display and a Mac, that some displays have an internal fan too.