Thanks but, Intel Macs killed support for Classic Apps.
However, I found something on MacOSXHints.com today!
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20041014005324939
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Mac Pro: Quiet or Noisy?
- Thread starter Curren~Sea
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Thanks but, Intel Macs killed support for Classic Apps.
However, I found something on MacOSXHints.com today!
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20041014005324939
Actually... I don't know how to enter Open Firmware on the Intel Macs so I don't think that hint will actually work. Any suggestions on how I can do this... I still don't have Windows XP or Classic. HELP!
so i took off my homemade "hard drive quieting solution" because after enabling the AAM i don't even need it! the drive is very very quiet now!
Now here comes the hard part. I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 NCQ, Model# ST3400832AS.
Seagate states that their drives run in performance mode when both the drive and the controller support NCQ (Native Command Queuing). When one or the other doesn't, the drive will run in quiet mode.
Because the mac pro supports NCQ the Seagate drive is really noisy. Much Much noisier than it ever was in my G4 tower with Sonnet SATA card.
Is there any way to disable NCQ on the Mac Pro, or the Seagate drive?
Now here comes the hard part. I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 NCQ, Model# ST3400832AS.
Seagate states that their drives run in performance mode when both the drive and the controller support NCQ (Native Command Queuing). When one or the other doesn't, the drive will run in quiet mode.
Because the mac pro supports NCQ the Seagate drive is really noisy. Much Much noisier than it ever was in my G4 tower with Sonnet SATA card.
Is there any way to disable NCQ on the Mac Pro, or the Seagate drive?
So what's up with all the dumbing-down of your MacPro? If your priority was noise over performance, you should have gone with an iMac. Or try getting earplugs if you are so sensitive to sound.
I am an audio person. I record and mix music with my macs. It is very very important that the computer be as quiet as possible when you have a condenser microphone recording just 3 feet from your tower.
I spent a lot of time fitting my Dual 1ghz quicksilver G4 internals in to a G5 case, and succeeded in making the quietest quicksilver machine i have ever seen/heard. But my processing needs quickly out grew the Dual G4 so naturally a mac pro was the way to go, as the G5 has too many fans and makes too much noise.
The drives out perform my requirements even when in 'quiet mode', so why not quiet them down?
Please explain to me how I am supposed to mix audio with ear plugs in?
Try posting something relevant next time.
Maybe he didn't know your worked with music.
I used rubber to reduce noise in my HDD, I also swapped the main osx system from the stock disc to a new HDD I got which is a little quieter, now the noisy disc is there sitting still until I need to access something from there.
Thanks for coming to my defense... and yeah, I didn't know. If I had to deal with sound issues, I'd run my drives in an external enclosure so I could have better control over dampening the sound... or just shutting them off when I'm actually recording something. Certainly one drive isn't going to make enough noise to ruin the audio? When I ran my Mac with only one drive it was virtually silent. Adding additional drives and fast graphics cards make all the difference.
Scratch all that. If I need a sound proof computer and didn't need a ton of power, I'd get an iMac for recording. I'd certainly do that before hobbling a MacPro!
Why would you get an iMac for recording? When mixing multiple tracks (and I have a LOT of tracks when mixing) you're gonna want all the power you can get, and I don't think the iMac would provide as much power. Plus, you can't upgrade the iMac in the future (except drives and RAM) but, the Mac Pro can upgrade to 16GB of RAM and 512MB VRAM Video Card.
Let me tell you why I won't be buying an iMac. Even hafter having 'hobbled' my Mac Pro to make it quieter, the disks still consistantly outperform the imac.
On the xbench results comparison site I compared my scores to those from intel iMacs. I found that the overall disk test scores were consistantly between 10 and 20 better than the iMac scores.
It's like putting a quiet muffler on a performance car, it will still out perform your Ford Focus any day.
THAT is why I will not be buying an iMac.
i would guess not.....
here are some recordings i just made. The OEM Western Digital drive is in HDD slot 4 (at the rear of the machine to keep the noise down) The Seagate drive is in HDD slot 3.
click here to hear the OEM Western Digital drive in quiet mode
click here to hear the OEM Western Digital drive in LOUD/Performance mode
click here to hear the Seagate 7200.8 with NCQ enabled aka loud/performance mode
I don't have any way to disable NCQ so I couldn't record the Seagate drive in quiet mode.
(im sure you can hear why the seagate drive is so annoying, BTW I have decided to put it in an external enclosure that does not support NCQ, allowing the drive to run in quiet mode)
I have a 20" iMac Core Duo with 2gigs of ram running Pro Tools 7 just fine. Now I'm only using 4-12 tracks and about 2-4 plug-ins per track at most, but it functions just as good (if not better/faster than) as my old G5 Quad. Plus, it's nice and quiet in here. I considered a Mac Pro, but if I do upgrade, it'll probably be the 24" iMac Core2Duo 2.33 with 3gigs of RAM.
Does the OEM Seagate drive that is included with the Mac Pro support NCQ?
If so, i would imagine that it would be really loud.
I finally got Windows XP and ran WinAAM which worked WONDERFULLY! I also downloaded a few game demos... the ones that I could get working ran very very fast, I couldn't believe it. Not even a hickup at all. Gotta love it. Now I'm running Parallels and it's freakin' sweet. I've never actually had fun running Windows but, now that I can have Mac OS X and Windows on the same screen, I can't explain the feeling.
the drive is pretty darn quiet now huh?
I too was pleased with the gaming performance when in windows. I actually ordered up another 250gb WD2500JS drive to partition to run windows from, and for storage space.
I don't understand. Are you saying that you ran WinAAM on your windows partition that is hosting parallels? I thought you would have to apply WinAMM to the whole drive, thus making it incompatible with OS X (unless formatted Fat 32).
Where did you get WinAAM? I thought it had been discontinued. Have a link?
Did the search kill you? I just searched GOOGLE for "WinAAM" and the very FIRST webpage that shows up had the link right on it. Whew, that was hard
http://www.withopf.com/tools/aam/
Anyways... I'm stuck in OS X again because I deleted my Windows partition. Damnit... why isn't there a simple App that can do this in OS X. Anyone care to write a MacAAM App for OS X?
Pro Audio?
Product26,
Why not just do what the entire rest of the pro audio community does. Build, or buy an isolation box for your system. I could recommend a good manufacturer if you would like.
As far as using a condenser mic in the room, no computer of any type will be quiet enough for that. Not an imac, nor a mini. Condenser mics are not meant for control rooms. Even the amplifiers in your monitors are far to loud to be feet away from a good condenser, so this is a non issue. Good condensers will pick up a person breathing at 40ft.
So your fix is easy, isolate the computer as much as possible, and if you only have one room, isolate your mics as much as possible. Will still be noisy, but you haven't much of a choice, unless you add on an iso booth to your home/studio.
Product26,
Why not just do what the entire rest of the pro audio community does. Build, or buy an isolation box for your system. I could recommend a good manufacturer if you would like.
As far as using a condenser mic in the room, no computer of any type will be quiet enough for that. Not an imac, nor a mini. Condenser mics are not meant for control rooms. Even the amplifiers in your monitors are far to loud to be feet away from a good condenser, so this is a non issue. Good condensers will pick up a person breathing at 40ft.
So your fix is easy, isolate the computer as much as possible, and if you only have one room, isolate your mics as much as possible. Will still be noisy, but you haven't much of a choice, unless you add on an iso booth to your home/studio.
I'm getting an odd resonance-related problem with my Mac Pro.
It starts quiet, but after a while a very-audible 'hum' starts that builds in intensity. If I grab the top handle and lift the case a few cm, the hum disappears. Then it's a matter of time before it comes back. From reading the posts, I don't see anyone else who has this problem...
Also, it started after I fitted some 3rd-party RAM with heat spreaders...I've taken the boards out and re-seated them and I've fitted additional heat sinks to the RAM -- the problem is still there.
Also, to anyone else who's using the AcceleroX2 cooler with an X1900 -- how's the fit inside the Mac Pro case? Anyone got any pics of this in situ?
It starts quiet, but after a while a very-audible 'hum' starts that builds in intensity. If I grab the top handle and lift the case a few cm, the hum disappears. Then it's a matter of time before it comes back. From reading the posts, I don't see anyone else who has this problem...
Also, it started after I fitted some 3rd-party RAM with heat spreaders...I've taken the boards out and re-seated them and I've fitted additional heat sinks to the RAM -- the problem is still there.
Also, to anyone else who's using the AcceleroX2 cooler with an X1900 -- how's the fit inside the Mac Pro case? Anyone got any pics of this in situ?