Would a thicker but cooler and quieter iMac be a better idea?

[spencecb]

HELL YA!! i would trade another 0.5" for some peace of mind. Some poster about cheaper HDs in PCs .... just get your prejudice off and grow up ... Noise depends on the case and the sound proofing.

Well fine then. It's cheaper sound proofing and cheaper cases that PC manufacturers use. And it's not prejudice...it's fact.

 

[kwajo.com]

they should go back to the slot-load iMac revisions that had no fans at all. I have a Ruby one that runs flawlessly everyday and doesn't make a sound other than the gentle whirr of the HD. brilliant

 

[ebow]

they should go back to the slot-load iMac revisions that had no fans at all. I have a Ruby one that runs flawlessly everyday and doesn't make a sound other than the gentle whirr of the HD. brilliant

Yeah, I miss my silent G3 iMac. Of course I don't miss the G3 part of it. But my current rev B iMac G5 gets "wicked" noisy (fan noise) when I rip a CD or especially when I play Super DX-Ball. I have Temperature Monitor Lite in my menu bar and it reports at least 80.5°C after I've been playing that game for a little while!

I'd gladly exchange another half inch of thickness for improved passive ventilation.

 

[m-dogg]

I didn't think they needed to trim down the Rev. C's the way they did.

I thought they could have kept they same size as the Rev. A/B's and used the extra space to make it quieter.

As others have mentioned, I wouldn't really notice if my Rev. A was a little thicker or thinner. When I'm at my desk I don't notice how thick it is anyway. As long as the relative footprint it occupies on my desk doesn't change, it doesn't really matter to me...

 

[budugu]

I didn't think they needed to trim down the Rev. C's the way they did.

I thought they could have kept they same size as the Rev. A/B's and used the extra space to make it quieter.

As others have mentioned, I wouldn't really notice if my Rev. A was a little thicker or thinner. When I'm at my desk I don't notice how thick it is anyway. As long as the relative footprint it occupies on my desk doesn't change, it doesn't really matter to me...

They did not make it that thin anyway! just rearranged so that user serviceability is next to impossible (only good feature they had on imacs) and the edges were a shade thinner and the center is a shade thicker. as you said foot print might not change that much but the base might have to be longer/wider so that imac will not trip.

 

[themacman]

I especially love the crackling sound PCs make when loading

Well thicker iMacs eh... hang on... how about you shell the inside of an iMac G5 into an eMac case. Yup. Problem Solved.

ive always wonder what is the sound. Its like nails on a chalkboard.

 

[TBi]

The problem with fan noise is that it is all relative. To me my computer is quite loud, but to a lot of people out there my computer is very quiet and quieter than any computer they have worked with. My friends computer is a whirring monstrocity yet he thinks it's quite silent.

So to one person the iMac is dead silent, but to another person it could be loud and annoying. It depends on the person, and their ears, and how much they don't want to bad mouth apple because apple is the greatest company in the world and never makes mistakes (especially on an Apple fan site) and they don't wanna feel bad about their €2000 investment...

I think the Mac Mini is a glorious example of how a computer should sound. Not dead silent but so quiet i can hear the hiss of my speakers over it (making me want to get new speakers...). If the iMac was as silent as this i'd love to get one, if i didn't think it was so ugly anyway

 

[eXan]

use a PC for a year then use those 'noisy' imacs...... drop dead silent

Under 100% load my rev. B is pretty noisy compared to the idle state. However iMac destroys eMac in terms of fan noise

iMacs will never become as quite as Mac mini just because mini has 1.42 G4 and iMac has 2 ghz G5

 

[TBi]

iMacs will never become as quite as Mac mini just because mini has 1.42 G4 and iMac has 2 ghz G5

That's not true. An iMac could be made as quiet by removing the power supply (whats so wrong with an external power supply anyway?) and using heatpipe technology to put a big cpu heatsink into the space the internal PSU uses (albeit in a different location).

On the same note why doesn't the 20" have a bigger heatsink than the 17"? It has more space so why can't they fit it in and make it quieter?

 

[OnaMacSince1989]

I don't doubt that there are some iMacs with fans and/or disk drives that may be louder than others due to manufacturing inconsistencies, and defective products should certainly be exchanged. But, I don't think there's any inherent design problem or that the case needs to be thicker. I've got a Rev.B model G5 iMac and it's been whisper quiet since it arrived last spring. It may not be completely silent like the fan-less CRT models of yesteryear, but so what. You should hear my Dell tower at work, damn thing sounds like a jet taking off sometimes.

Besides, who really sits in a room that's completely silent anyway? There's all sorts of sounds at home and in the office that normally cover the little bit of noise iMacs may make. So if micro-decible differences in noises emitted by your iMac bother you, then just turn up the TV or put on your iPod headphones.

 

[dcv]

I sometimes wonder what other people's definitions of 'noisy' and 'whisper quiet' are!

My PowerBook is whisper quiet.

In comparison, my Rev B iMac is noisy as hell. That was the first thing I noticed when it arrived

Having read some of the comments in this thread, I wonder if mine is noisier than it should be. I have iTunes playing most of the time and still hear it whirring. Can anything actually be done about this noise? I mean is it worth me contacting Apple over it? That is my one and only complaint about this machine.

 

[TBi]

My PowerBook is whisper quiet.

So is my iBook and it is a joy to have running as you can't hear it under all the other noises in a typical house.

The Mini is slightly noisier but you can only tell the difference at night, with only the two on ... and you stop breathing...

I have iTunes playing most of the time and still hear it whirring. Can anything actually be done about this noise? I mean is it worth me contacting Apple over it? That is my one and only complaint about this machine.

I hate computers where you can hear them whir over your music. Problem is i don't know what an iMac should sound like. I don't really need all the power so i'm glad i didn't get one.

 

[Mikael]

I think the point that was being made is most PC manufacturers use HDD that are noisier than the ones Apple use. You have to really concentrate to hear the HDD on my iMac. I can hear the HDD on my PowerBook without much concentration, but that is the norm with most notebook computers. Most PC's HDD are god-awful noisy.

That might be, though I believe Seagate is the largest HDD supplier in the world and their harddrives usually don't have a distinct seek noise. I'd suspect that a large part of those drives go into pre-built machines.

Saying PCs are loud is somewhat misleading, though. For example, my old PC (overclocked AthlonXP-M with Radeon 9800 Pro) was probably quieter than any Mac currently on the market by a good margin. And when I say quiet, I mean quiet as in having to check the LEDs in the front to make sure it was on (atleast if you were a meter or so away from it).

What I'm trying to say is that a PC is what you make it. This is the beauty and probably also the curse of the PC platform. There's a very large selection of equipment out there and it's pretty trivial to build something like a quiet PC.

Bottom line: If any of you would ever consider buying a PC again, you should stay away from those pre-built name brand computers. Why not configure a computer that suits you, using a PC builder on any reputable PC retailer's web site? They'll even build it for a small fee. You get what you want and you can choose parts that you know are of high quality.

ive always wonder what is the sound. Its like nails on a chalkboard.

It's the harddrive seeking out data on the platters. It comes from the movement of the drive heads. Any harddrive will emit this seek noise, but the noise level will vary between models and brands. You'll hear it on your Mac too if you listen closely.

 

[AnApple]

iMac

I didn't feel like reading the whole thread so this reply might be off topic by now...

IMO, iMac=form
Powermac=function (apple style)

------------------------------------
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny into your
(")_(") sig to help him gain world domination.

 

[rei1974]

Bottom line: If any of you would ever consider buying a PC again, you should stay away from those pre-built name brand computers. Why not configure a computer that suits you, using a PC builder on any reputable PC retailer's web site? They'll even build it for a small fee. You get what you want and you can choose parts that you know are of high quality.

Yeah exactly, otherwise you might end with a really NOISY computer that can't even let you play (not even talking about working here!)

 

[adam-uk]

Half the reason it is louder, is not b/c of the fans...but mearly the fact that the noise is ear level. If looks at a Windows PC or a Powermac for example, they both make the noise at ground level (with the tower often under your desk) - so you dont hear them as much.

I bet if you had the tower on your desk next to the monitor, u'de notice it more.

I wouldnt say my new iMac is wispher quiet - I did when I first recieved it a month ago, but since then I have come accustom to hearing the fan purr - but compared to my AMD 64 which im using now...even with just the cpu and powersupply fans on, my head is shouting "BRING BACK THE IMAAAACC!!!"

 

[LFrascogna]

I live in the heart of downtown Chicago. I have never heard the fans on my iMac G5 rev. B, but it would have to be louder than the El and the cars outside to be audible. It is still 100 times quieter than my powerbook.