Mac Pro: Quiet or Noisy?

[daveporter]

Here is my experience with a Mac Pro (completely stock config):

Under light load the Mac Pro's fans are loud compared to a Pentium 4 PC with optimized fans or a MacBook Pro. The good thing is that the noise did not increase under heavy load.

The fans make a constant hum which sounds like a propeller airplane.
With no ambient noise present it is annoying. However, it's no problem in a noisy office or while listening to music.

The power supply emits a buzzing noise, but it's not noticeable from normal distance.

Today, I went to an Apple shop and listened to some Mac Pros, as far as I was able to hear it in that rather loud environment they all make a humming noise.

I'd love to hear reports from people who have their Mac Pro in a quite room, because if some are "dead silent" I'll have to sent mine back.

In my case, the only noise I hear are the hard drives spinning and accessing. When the hard drives spin down, my MP is so quite that I really can't hear it. Mine sits below my desk but the face of the MP is exposed so if there was any fan noise I should hear it.

I do not have any power supply noise that I can hear; there is no buzz, rumble, hum or anything that resembles it.

Dave

 

[aneks]

my mac was silent as anything. but now I am getting a REALLY annoying vibration from the drive caddys. they ressonate, especially drive 1 which seems to reub against the plastic of the front fan. This is the only issue I have with my mac and its a bit of a pisser.

 

[theblotted]

i thought G5's were quiet as hell compared to G4, but my new Mac Pro is ridiculously quiet. i could barely hear it.

my external Lacie drive or G4 Powerbook are MUCH louder that MP.

any noise from MP for me is when it's reading an internal HD. the blip/chug sound it makes when it's writing/reading something. must be how the drive caddy is designed, it creates an acoustical chamber which somewhat amplifies the blip/chug sound.

kinda annoying, but once i get used to it or find better things to do, i don't even think about it.

the quiet-ness is esp useful for me cuz now i can do guitar or vocal recordings in the same room i have my computer setup. not having to move to a different room is a huge plus. good job Apple!

 

[Neonguy]

After adding the ATI X1900 XT it become one noisy Computer! It like to take off on my desk everytime I fired it up! My Accelero X2 is on it's way, I can't stand the noise anymore because my Mac Pro have alway been so quiet.

 

[steelduck]

The fans make a constant hum which sounds like a propeller airplane.
With no ambient noise present it is annoying. However, it's no problem in a noisy office or while listening to music.

Yep, Mine does that propellel plane sound also. I do not notice it during days when there are ambient noise in the room, but it is a bit annoying during nights when there is no ambient noise.

It is still a lot more silent than my PC was.

 

[akadmon]

After adding the ATI X1900 XT it become one noisy Computer! It like to take off on my desk everytime I fired it up! My Accelero X2 is on it's way, I can't stand the noise anymore because my Mac Pro have alway been so quiet.

Hm, it does seem as though all the complaints about noisy Mac Pros are coming from those who have the X1900 installed. Mine has the stock Nvidia. It's plenty for what I do, and my Mac Pro is ultra quiet

 

[kered22]

Yeah I didn't realize how much fan noise the X1900 put out. Granted it's not a significant amount, but when you start up, it does rev to full blast for a couple of seconds. I originally thought it was the front case fans, but I had my side door off diagnosing a hard drive problem and heard the X1900 was the culprit.

Still a quiet system overall though, even with 4 hard drives inside.

 

[TheSpaz]

I just got my Mac Pro and it's pretty quiet except for the Western Digital drive that's in it... that seems to crackle a lot (when it's being accessed) it seems like my drive is being accessed way too much. Anyways... I figured I'd get a Seagate drive because I hate Western Digital drives (bad experiences) but, after reading this thread, it seems that the Western Digital is quiet compared to the Seagates. In my PowerBook G4, I can hardly hear the drive crunching (Seagate 2.5" 100GB). I guess I can deal with the drive noise until I get some more RAM.

 

[clutchcargo]

I just got my Mac Pro and it's pretty quiet except for the Western Digital drive that's in it... that seems to crackle a lot (when it's being accessed) it seems like my drive is being accessed way too much. Anyways... I figured I'd get a Seagate drive because I hate Western Digital drives (bad experiences) but, after reading this thread, it seems that the Western Digital is quiet compared to the Seagates. In my PowerBook G4, I can hardly hear the drive crunching (Seagate 2.5" 100GB). I guess I can deal with the drive noise until I get some more RAM.

Do you just have the 1gb in the machine?? Since I went from 1gb to 5gb the hard drives are only accessed when there is something to write (rather than the almost consistent memory paging that was happening). Its like a different machine now.

 

[MegaSignal]

Wow.

If the loudest thing on the Mac Pro is the HDD, then I'm officially sold - big time!

(I'm tired of the 650-watt power supply screamin' 6000-rpm (or whatever) fan-bots whirring in my ears...)

 

[product26]

with the exception of the misc. apple laptops that i have had, the Mac Pro is the quietest computer I have owned to date. The hard drive noise is something that plagues all computers, but I do think that the aluminum enclosure does make it resonate more than the average plastic enclosed computer.

I actually worked up a way to quiet down some of the hard drive noise. I will post details later tonight. Those of you who only use 2 drives in the system may find it useful.

EDIT:

see my post below for more info on how i made a hard drive silencer. and also an update on how i set the Automatic Acoustic Management settings and quieted the drive even further.

 

[MegaSignal]

'preciate it!

with the exception of the misc. apple laptops that i have had, the Mac Pro is the quietest computer I have owned to date. The hard drive noise is something that plagues all computers, but I do think that the aluminum enclosure does make it resonate more than the average plastic enclosed computer.

I actually worked up a way to quiet down some of the hard drive noise. I will post details later tonight. Those of you who only use 2 drives in the system may find it useful.

The biggest problem for me was the fact that I cannot do anything to my G5 power supply, as it is completely inaccessable due to the design; I am totally out of the loop on this issue with my G5.

That being said, an HDD is a very accessable and easy to swap "user-servicable part"; on top of that, you say that there are other ways to quiet these drives down as well...I'm all ears!

As such, my crystal ball foretells a new Intel Mac Pro in my very near future!

 

[wsgroves]

Quiet. Most of the time I dont even know mine is on and i have it full of hd's and an 8800GTX.
This things is very quiet.
Also, most of the time I keep the side case off and it sits about 3 feet from me at ear level and its almost silent.

 

[dont24]

I check out a Mac Pro at the local Apple store. Sounded very quiet to me. Is the noise that much worse with an X1900 installed?

 

[seanf]

I just got my Mac Pro and it's pretty quiet except for the Western Digital drive that's in it...

Try enabling Automatic Acoustic Management.

Is the noise that much worse with an X1900 installed?

Yes, unless you install a quieter fan.

Sean

 

[product26]

Try enabling Automatic Acoustic Management.
Sean

how would one go about doing this? I tried the Hitachi Feature Tool but it didn't load any keyboard or mouse drivers so i couldn't use it.

EDIT

I booted in to windows xp and used a program called WinAAM on my 250gb western digital drive that came with my mac pro. I set it to the 'quiet' setting.

My "hard drive quieting solution" made a noticeable difference, but using WinAAM to set the Automatic Acoustic Management settings to quiet made a HUGE difference.

I did not run any tests to see if there was any performance hit. I am more than willing to sacrafice a little disk performance for a quieter machine.

Here is my hard drive quieting solution:
a Zalman ZM-2HC2 Drive cooler I put some sound insulating material snuggly between the heat pipes and the hard drive. (i took the sound insulating material from a hard drive silencing enclosure, AKA hard drive cooker)

There are a couple of pretty big drawbacks to using the Zalman Hard Drive cooler. You loose 2 of the drive slots because it makes the drive too wide for any other drive to fit. Also you have to put the drive in either slot 2 or 3, and 1/3 or 2/4 have to be empty depending on where you put it. HOWEVER, after having adjusted the AAM settings, the drive is so quiet that i may not even need my "hard drive quieting solution."

The other drawback is that it appears to hang low enough that it may block the top PCI express slot, I currently cannot offer any confirmation on this.

 

[seanf]

I booted in to windows xp and used a program called WinAAM on my 250gb western digital drive that came with my mac pro. I set it to the 'quiet' setting.

Yep, this is the easiest way to do it.

I did not run any tests to see if there was any performance hit. I am more than willing to sacrafice a little disk performance for a quieter machine.

With the two Samsung drives I put in my Pro there was a noticeable difference in seek noise and only a minuscule performance hit.

Sean

 

[TheSpaz]

Yep, this is the easiest way to do it.

With the two Samsung drives I put in my Pro there was a noticeable difference in seek noise and only a minuscule performance hit.

Sean

Is there any way to do this without Windows XP. I don't even have a copy of XP to even load on here. I need a Mac solution. Suggestions?

 

[bwv1060]

I like your solution Product26...I might consider that for my spare drive.

For my primary drive I'm going to use the Smart Drive 2002 Copper Cool in the available 5.25" bay. I've had this product in my previous windows machine and it worked incredibly well...it made my PC whisper quiet.

 

[seanf]

I need a Mac solution. Suggestions?

You could try MacAAM, but I have never used this. Backup all you data first.

Sean

 

[4God]

Wow, good to know all of this. I'm currently using a 20" iMac Core Duo in my recording studio and it is very silent. I do audio and video work, but mostly audio recording and post. I was saving for/considering a MacPro but now I'm not sure. My workstation area is only about 5' from my vocal booth (that's not completely enclosed) and I need absolute silence in this area. Maybe I'll go for the 24" iMac Core2Duo 2.33 with maxed RAM and HD instead. BTW, I use Pro Tools, Peak 5.0, and the entire Final Cut Studio Suite.

 

[CyberPrey]

Sitting on my desk simply runnuing Seti@Home on all 4 cores, the machine is remarkably silent... Normal browsing and stuff is fairly good, but the minute I kick in World of Warcraft or any other game, the x1900 fan begins to sound like a jet as does the cd/dvd (not to mention the damn door sticking open...)

 

[freezerburrn]

After adding an X2 to my X1900XT I was hoping my Mac Pro would be "whisper quiet" but unfortunately I hear a very noticable hum or whir. It sounds like it could be be WD Caviar 320GB hard drive or the Seagate 160GB that came with the Mac Pro.

Like 4God, I use my Mac Pro for audio recording purposes and as of this moment I need to find a way to make my Mac Pro more quiet.

 

[4God]

.......as of this moment I need to find a way to make my Mac Pro more quiet.

Answer: Get an iMac.

 

[daveIT]

I say

I'd say it's pretty quiet...of course I work on a flight line all day and listen to that darnded rock'n'roll too loud.

The X1900 and DVD drive make some noise when it spins up but I just crank the speakers louder.