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PowerMac G4 MDD

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 13, 2014
1,900
277
Hi, everyone,

So I recently posted a thread about my original Mac Pro's front fan assembly being significantly louder than that of my brother's 2008 Mac Pro. One would have to put their ear up to his machine to properly hear the front fans, while one can step back from my machine and hear them.

My frontal fan assembly never goes past (or lower than) 500RPM--just like that of my brother's Mac Pro.

So, without heading a warning from another user who said that he replaced the fans in his Mac Pro and it didn't make a difference, I just went ahead and bought a replacement fan assembly for $15--shipped. I considered what that guy said, but I was really sure that the bearings in my original fan assembly were messed up and hoped that a replacement could help....

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So I got the replacement fan assembly today and installed it, and it IS somewhat quieter than my previous one, but my brother's 2008 Mac Pro's assembly is STILL quieter, even though it's choked up with lint.
Some tell me that the newer Mac Pros are quieter, and some tell me that their OG models are whisper silent. Are these people just used to louder computers and think that the 2006 Mac Pro is quiet by comparison? Or, perhaps, did I happen to get a fan that also had tons of 'miles' on it? It's really bugging me.

BTW, my GPU is a little loud, but its fan noise is easily discernible from that of my frontal fan assembly. It seems as though all other fans are okay, but these ones are just loud. It's hard to tell which specific one from the assembly is the loudest (esp. considering that the top one is more exposed and easier to hear, but I have a feeling that the top one IS a little bit louder, as I noticed when I spun the blades by hand.)

I may just put a mic up to this and record its sound. Maybe someone can point me in the correct direction. Does anyone out there have a 2006 Mac Pro that is TRULY silent?
 
Have you thought of installing Temperature Monitor on both Macs to see what temp everything is running at. It may help to show the differences between the 2 Macs. Is the other Mac running the same CPUs? I upgraded my 2006 1.1 to 3 ghz quad core from 2.66 dual core and it is still pretty quiet even with fans adjusted slightly with SMC FanControl. I had the X1900 graphics card in originally and this was always getting noisy due to dust clogging the heat sink - the HD5770 is a far quieter card.

Using SMC FanControl you may be able to pinpoint the fan causing the problem as you can adjust the min speed of each fan - perhaps worth a try?
 
Have you thought of installing Temperature Monitor on both Macs to see what temp everything is running at. It may help to show the differences between the 2 Macs. Is the other Mac running the same CPUs? I upgraded my 2006 1.1 to 3 ghz quad core from 2.66 dual core and it is still pretty quiet even with fans adjusted slightly with SMC FanControl. I had the X1900 graphics card in originally and this was always getting noisy due to dust clogging the heat sink - the HD5770 is a far quieter card.

Using SMC FanControl you may be able to pinpoint the fan causing the problem as you can adjust the min speed of each fan - perhaps worth a try?

I have both Hardware Monitor and SMC FanControl. My temperatures are pretty good (Heatsink A doesn't usually go above 100F, and CPU A Proximity doesn't go past 110F. Of course, those higher temps are exhibited when I am running a stressful application on my computer/the room is hotter.

As for SMC FanControl, all my fans are running at their lowest capacity, and they are doing so all the time. My frontal fan assembly runs at 500RPM. Although the noise is a little quieter now, I'll go ahead and do an audio recording and post it on YouTube or something. It's hard to ask whether a Mac Pro 1,1 is nosier or not, as some may be used to loud computers and may think the 1,1 is silent by comparison.
 
I have both Hardware Monitor and SMC FanControl. My temperatures are pretty good (Heatsink A doesn't usually go above 100F, and CPU A Proximity doesn't go past 110F. Of course, those higher temps are exhibited when I am running a stressful application on my computer/the room is hotter.

As for SMC FanControl, all my fans are running at their lowest capacity, and they are doing so all the time. My frontal fan assembly runs at 500RPM. Although the noise is a little quieter now, I'll go ahead and do an audio recording and post it on YouTube or something. It's hard to ask whether a Mac Pro 1,1 is nosier or not, as some may be used to loud computers and may think the 1,1 is silent by comparison.
If you raise the min speed of each fan in turn you may be able to tell which is making more noise. Presumably as it spins faster it will get noisier. My Mac is same vintage as yours and is pretty quiet - not silent but not obtrusive at all. My fans are set to min speed of around 700 - 750 since changing the CPUs and maxing out the RAM and it is almost still as quiet as before.
 
If you raise the min speed of each fan in turn you may be able to tell which is making more noise. Presumably as it spins faster it will get noisier. My Mac is same vintage as yours and is pretty quiet - not silent but not obtrusive at all. My fans are set to min speed of around 700 - 750 since changing the CPUs and maxing out the RAM and it is almost still as quiet as before.

I can tell that it's the frontal fan assembly. The 2008 Mac Pro's assembly looks identical; maybe it's quieter or not as susceptible to wear? I bet it would work in a 2006 Mac Pro, even though it says which assembly is compatible with the 1,1 ones. I have the feeling that if I took my brother's fans (I wouldn't) and put them in my Mac Pro, it would be fine.

Mine is certainly not obtrusive, but way louder than my brother's. I'm going to do an audio recording once the room in which the Mac Pro sits is unoccupied.
 
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